Captured (The Prometheus Project Book 2) (11 page)

Davidenko smiled slowly. “Billions and billions,” he said simply.

Ryan began to slip the device into his pocket once again.

“Not so fast,” said the lieutenant. “I think I
would
like a demonstration, after all. First, point it at your sister and press the other two buttons. I want to make sure nothing happens to her.”

“Still no time to explain?”
asked a confused Regan.

“I’m afraid not. But don’t worry, you’ll catch on.”

Ryan pointed the device at Regan and pressed the top button. The tip of the device glowed. He pressed the middle button and it glowed again. Ryan glanced up at their captor. “Satisfied?” he asked.

Davidenko nodded and considered what he should do next.

“Wow, Ryan, that pain setting really works,”
broadcast Regan.
“The nasty headache I got when we were talking to Manning went away the second you pressed the button.”

“Okay,” said Davidenko, having made up his mind. “Let’s do this. Try it out on me.”

“But you aren’t sick or wounded,” pointed out Ryan. “Are you in any pain?”

The merc shook his head, no.

“Then how will you know it works?”

Davidenko considered this, frowning. “Good question,” he said finally. “I don’t know.” He noticed an amused look on Ryan’s face. “Let me guess,” he snapped. “You have an idea?”

“As a matter of fact,” said Ryan happily, “I do. My idea is to kick you—hard—in the leg. Then I can use the pain setting and you’ll know if it works or not.”

The mercenary thought about this. “Go ahead,” he said. “But let me warn you. If your pen doesn’t work, I’m going to kick you back. Hard.”

“Don’t worry,” said Ryan. “It’ll work.”

Ryan pulled his foot back and kicked Davidenko in the shin as hard as he could. The merc cursed several times through clenched teeth.

“Can you feel any pain now?” asked Ryan innocently, fighting back a smile.

“Quit stalling and use the pen!” demanded Davidenko.

Ryan pointed the alien medical device at the mercenary and pressed the middle button. The tip glowed softly once again.

Davidenko’s eyes widened in surprise and delight. “You were right,” he said in disbelief. “That’s amazing. My leg stopped hurting immediately.”

“Told you,” said Ryan, slipping the device into his pocket.

“I’ll take that now,” said Davidenko predictably.

Ryan frowned and handed the device over to him. “Okay,” he said. “But we really need to get moving. My sister and I are convinced that the last clue is in this building.” He pointed to their parents’ lab.

“I hope you know what you’re doing, Ryan,”
broad-cast his sister.

“Yeah. Me too,”
he responded wryly.

They led the lieutenant to one of the invisible doors,
a section of the silver wall that promptly vanished and then reappeared behind them after they entered. The mercenary was clearly surprised by this, looking back to where the doorway had appeared with a puzzled look on his face, but remained silent.

Ryan pointed to a washing-machine sized object at the side of the stainless-steel table in the middle of the room. “That,” he said, “is a holographic projector. I’m pretty sure it’ll give us the final clue. We need you to go over there and flip the switch in the middle.”

“What will it do?” said the mercenary suspiciously. “And why me? Why don’t you do it?”

“It will project a holographic map of the city covered with strange symbols. We think we can decipher them and find a force-field nullifier.”

“Again,” pressed Davidenko, “why don’t you flip the switch?”

Ryan appeared nervous. “We, ah … we could. I mean, there is no reason we
couldn’t
. But you have to be standing at this exact spot to read the clue, and it only stays on for a few seconds, so we ah … we need to be standing here.”

“Is that so?”

Regan’s eyes widened as she finally realized what her brother’s plan must be. “Ah … absolutely,” she responded, using her own acting talents to assist her brother. “That device is completely harmless,” she assured Davidenko, knowing that this would only make
him more suspicious. “Just turn it on and we’ll read the clue from right here. Then we’ll be able to find the technology Tezoc needs to exit the city. Everyone will be happy.”

“I have a better idea,” insisted Davidenko. “You two go over there and turn it on. I’ll stand here and watch for the hologram.”

“But … but you won’t know what to look for,” stammered Ryan.

Davidenko smiled. “We can always do it again. But you have to try it first. Just like with the pen. I’m not about to walk into one of your traps.”

“What are you talking about,” complained Ryan. “I told you the truth about the alien medical device. Why can’t you trust us?”

The mercenary laughed. “That’s how I’ve managed to stay alive for this long. By not letting myself get outsmarted by the likes of you.” The lieutenant smiled, very pleased with himself. “Now move!” he barked.

The siblings walked dejectedly to the generator.

Davidenko raised his weapon and pointed it at them. “Okay, no funny business. If I get the slightest hint you’re trying to trick me, I’ll shoot first and ask questions later.”

They nodded. Ryan stared calmly at the lieutenant and then reached forward and flipped the switch.

Nothing happened.

Five seconds passed.

“What’s wrong?” said Davidenko, his weapon still raised and his finger placed squarely on the trigger.

Ryan shook his head. “Nothing. It takes about fifteen seconds to warm up. You’ll see the hologram any second.”

“I had better,” said Davidenko. “Because if this is some kind of stu—”

He never finished his sentence. In mid-word he collapsed to the ground like a sack of cement.

“Yesssss!” said Ryan excitedly. He flipped the switch the other way, turning the ultrasonic generator off, and then hugged his sister in elation.

They had done it! They were free from Davidenko. His plan had worked perfectly!

They both rushed up to the fallen mercenary and Ryan checked for a pulse.

“Well?” said his sister worriedly.

“It’s weak, but he’s alive.”

Regan blew out a relieved breath. They needed to escape, but they certainly didn’t want to be responsible for
killing
someone—not even a merc who wouldn’t have hesitated to do the same to them.

“He’ll probably make a full recovery,” continued Ryan. “But I’m guessing it’ll take a long while.”

Regan nodded. “Now
that
was a great plan, Ryan,” she said in admiration.

“Thanks,” he said with a wide grin. “I guess I was lucky everything fell into place,” he added, trying to be modest.

“Luck had nothing to do with it,” said Regan. “You couldn’t have played that any better.”

Ryan couldn’t help but smile proudly. He had expected it to be fairly simple to trick the mercenary into standing exactly where he and Regan had stood when
they
were blasted by the ultrasonic generator. He knew if they appeared desperate to be standing there when the machine was turned on, the suspicious Davidenko would
demand
to take up this position himself. The hard part had been tricking him into letting Ryan strip him of his ability to feel pain. If not for this, the instant they turned on the ultrasonic generator he would have shot them both and fled the building, screaming in agony, just as he and his sister had done. Luckily for them, they had felt the crushing, blinding pain the generator had caused immediately—not that it had seemed so lucky at the time.

“That alien medical device is
amazing
,” said Ryan. “
Beyond
amazing. The ultrasonic energy must have been practically vibrating his skull off and he didn’t feel a
thing
. He had absolutely
no idea
he was being attacked up until the time he passed out.”

“I guess pain really does have its purposes,” said Regan, beaming happily. “You’ll have to be sure to tell your teacher all about it if we ever get out of this.”

Her brother smiled. “Do you think that’s why she taught it—so her students could use this knowledge to knock out machine gun carrying mercenaries?”

“Of course,” said Regan, grinning. “What other reason could there be?”

Ryan paused. “Well, we’ve accomplished the first part of the plan,” he noted. “We’re free again. But we have less than two hours to free the rest of the team and save Mom and Dad. Our chances were one in a billion. Now, I’d guess they’ve improved to one in a million.”

“I don’t know, Ryan,” said his sister, her eyes twinkling. “They might just be a lot better than you think.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because while we were driving, I think I really did figure out where to find a force-field nullifier. If we’re lucky, we might just have a bargaining chip after all.”

C
HAPTER
16
The Force-Field Nullifier

“F
antastic,” said Ryan. “But let’s take care of Davidenko before you tell me about it,” he advised. “I doubt he’ll be waking up anytime soon, but let’s not take chances.”

Together they rolled the lieutenant onto his stomach and pulled his arms behind him. While Ryan held his wrists and then his ankles together, Regan bound them tightly with zip-strips they had removed from his belt.

They decided not to take Davidenko’s assault rifle. Neither of them knew how to use it. If they tried, the weapon could easily prove to be more dangerous to them than to their enemies.

They removed Davidenko’s belt, stuffed with spare clips and an assortment of other gear. Regan quickly began examining the contents of the bulging black pouches clipped onto the belt while her brother searched the
mercenary’s pockets and body. Ryan found a combat knife in a black-leather sheath strapped to the side of the soldier’s lower leg and removed it for possible future use. He also found the medical device Davidenko had taken from him and replaced it in his own pocket where it belonged.

Regan removed two small cylindrical tubes from a belt pouch. They resembled soda cans with clips protruding from their tops. She handed one to her brother. “Flashbangs,” she noted unnecessarily.

Ryan took one and nodded. These might be just what they needed for their next rescue attempt. Not only had they learned science from some of the greatest scientists of the day, Colonel Carl Sharp had taught them a thing or two about military equipment.

Stun grenades, also called flashbangs, were first used by the military in hostage rescue situations and were ideal for this purpose. These canisters were packed with a mixture of aluminum and potassium perchlorate—also known as flashpowder. Flashpowder was originally used in early flash cameras and by magicians, and was still used in fireworks and to create special effects for movies. This powder burnt very brightly and so quickly it seemed to “flash” out of existence. Flashbang grenades were not designed to cause any permanent damage, but like their name implied, simply to cause such an intensely bright flash and earsplitting bang that they would blind and deafen an enemy for about ten seconds.

While the rifle was of no use to the siblings, the knife and flashbangs might come in very handy.

Ryan found nothing else of interest, while Regan found only one additional useful item: a small stun gun that she slipped into her pocket. When fired, two small electrodes still attached by wires to the device would shoot out like dual harpoons. They would release an electrical charge capable of overloading the body’s electrical communication system, causing confusion and paralyzing muscles but not doing any permanent damage.

With Davidenko bound and their thorough inspection of his gear completed, Ryan was eager to hear what his sister had discovered.

Regan was confident of her logic, but she knew it wouldn’t be easy to convince her brother. She decided to get to the point fairly quickly and then go from there. She took a deep breath. “As we drove toward the zoo building,” she began, “I was thinking through the details of the rynow plan. How would we convince Davidenko to go through the portal to Walendam? How would we convince him to let us drive him in a tram once we arrived? That sort of thing.”

Ryan nodded. He had been doing the same thing.

“Davidenko would let us go anywhere we wanted, as long as he still thought we were trying to help his boss get through the force-field. So it was obvious that we just had to convince him that we were going to Walendam and taking a tram through the barrier to find a
force-field nullifier. In case he didn’t believe us, I began thinking of arguments that would support our lie. And then I realized something,” she continued, shaking her head in wonder. “It
wasn’t
a lie. The trams on the zoo planets really are the answer. They each have nullifiers we can use to get through the Prometheus shield.”

Ryan shook his head and reacted exactly as she had known he would. “Dad already considered this and ruled it out,” he said, unable to completely hide his disappointment.

“Yes, but he’s never tested it,” pointed out Regan. “The more I thought through the arguments the more convinced I became that Dad is wrong,” she said bluntly. “I’m almost sure of it.”

Ryan raised his eyebrows. “In what way?” he said.

“We know the planets all have force-field barriers to protect visitors, and we know when you’re in a tram you can just drive right through them if you want to explore.”

Ryan nodded. “Right. That’s why Dad considered the idea in the first place.”

“But he didn’t consider it carefully enough. He measured the frequencies of the shields on each planet and found they were all different. Different from each other and different from the Prometheus shield. Because of this he figured that even if there was some device on the tram—like an alien garage-door opener—used to cross a barrier on a given planet, it wouldn’t work here. He
knew from his own work that only something with the exact opposite frequency from that of the force-field could create an opening. Just like our garage-door remote on Earth—it can’t open anyone else’s door.”