Rebellion (Zero Series) (9 page)

A profile was on
the screen that read:

"Name: Vine,

Gene Spike: Ability
to manipulate plant matter,

Threat: High"

Then it dawned on
me. Kraken hadn't been killing the spikers they detained. They were freezing
them, but for what? Pan climbed down to me.
"I think I found our army," he said.

He found our army.
An entire army of spikers to combat Kraken and for the first time, I felt like
we stood a chance.

I looked into the face of the man in the tube. His
hair was brown and shaggy. His skin was fair but he had strange thing green
lines on his neck. “What do we do with them?” I asked.

“Hopefully we can revive them,” replied Pan.

“Do you mean right now?” I asked.

“No, there’s no way we could get all of them out
now,” he replied.

“We need to find a way to figure out who all these
people are and what they can do,” I said.

“Let’s have a look around. They must have a log of
all the subjects here. I’m sure that they would like to keep track of who they
have stored,” he replied. I started looking around the room for a filing
cabinet or file box of some sort. I realized after a few moments that it was
highly unlikely that they had physical copies. Pan was at a computer console
typing away. I approached him to see what was on the screen. It was a file
containing a list of all the spikers in the tubes and a profile on each one.

“I think I found what we need,” he said.

“Nice work. How do we get this for ourselves now?” I
asked.

“Jet gave me a lot of different technological items
she thought would be useful. I brought some of them. I may have a disk we can
try to back up this data on,” he said rummaging through his bag.
Pan pulled out the
disk from his bag. He inserted the small black square into the computer. He
entered some commands into the computer and a status bar popped up indicating
that files were transferring. When the progress reached fifteen percent, an
alarm began to blare in the room. A red light began to flash and cover the room
in its crimson hue.
"They must have a safeguard in the
system," Pan said.
"How much longer do you need?" I asked
frantically.
"Just another couple minutes," he
replied.
I heard a group of guards congregating outside
of the door. I ran over to Vine's tube and opened the glass hatch by his face.
He slowly opened his eyes and came to his senses.
"Vine, I'm going to get you out of here but
I need your help," I said. He nodded and I engaged the release sequence on
the computer. Steam hissed out of the tube and the hatch opened to the side.
Vine's slender figure was revealed as he emerged from the capsule. He cracked
his neck and walked over to a locker on the wall. He opened it and pulled out a
bag. He pulled out a handful of seeds. He looked over to the door and threw the
seeds on the ground in front of the entrance. The sound of the guards yelling
and banging on the door was growing louder.

“Open the door,” he
said calmly. I ran over to the door release and threw the switch. The large
metal doors opened a group of guards ran in. Vine held out his hand and the
seeds on the ground sprouted immediately into giant thorns that impaled the
guards. He made the thorns retract back into the seeds and the bodies fell to
the floor in a heap.

“I have the data.
We need to go,” Pan yelled across the room. Vine closed the doors that the
guards had tried to come through and latched the bag of seeds to his belt.

“Thank you for
releasing me,” he said.

“No problem but we
can talk when we get to safety,” I said, almost yelling over the alarm. We all
moved towards the ladder that led to the exit. Pan began to climb the ladder. I
hovered upwards and Vine threw a seed down and a large shrub-like plant formed
under his feet and lifted him to the catwalk. Once Pan was on the bridge with
us, we took off to the door and when we were out, we saw an entire squadron of
Kraken agents running to the front door. We waited until they entered the
building before we moved. We descended on a large branch that Vine produced and
took off through the city. We finally stopped running and were able to catch
our breath once we reached an alleyway.

“Thanks for freeing
me Zero,” Vine said.

“How do you know
who I am?” I asked.

“I was only in
their custody for a few days. I was free when you attacked Hades in the square
and I was imprisoned right after you killed Jekyll. You have quite a following
here,” he replied.

“Really?” I asked.

“From what I have
observed since I came here, people are quickly realizing that they can stand up
to Kraken,” Pan said.

“Many people who
were once afraid to make themselves known are now standing up to guards and
Kraken officials,” Vine said.

“Good. We need all
the help we can get. Especially since we have no idea what Operation Armageddon
is,” I said.

“Armageddon?” Vine
asked, “I know what that is. They just put us in the tubes two days ago. Before
that, we were all chained to the walls in that room while they experimented on
us. They are copying the gene spikes of all the spikers and merging them into a
man named Armageddon. I only saw him for a brief moment when they passed him
through the room in a cryo tube. They kept talking about how his body is accepting
the other spikes better than they could’ve imagined.”

“Forty gene spikes
in one man. He will be invincible,” Pan said.

“Why were you in
the tubes if they had you chained to the walls before?” I asked.

“Some of the
captured spikers were rather dangerous. One man named Nova almost destroyed the
building when they chained him up. His spike is the ability to store energy and
release it in an explosion similar to a nuclear one. They put us all in cryo
sleep while they experimented. They couldn’t risk him destroying Armageddon,”
he replied.

“Who would alter
his body to give him that spike?” I asked.

“Not every gene
spike is manufactured. Some people are born with theirs, like me,” Vine
replied.

“I was under the
impression that they had to be created,” Pan said.

“Kraken tries to
keep the public unaware that some people are born with them. I was only
discovered because I was trying to organize a group to aid the resistance and I
accidentally spoke to a Kraken informant,” said Vine.

“I see,” I said
pacing around, “Are you still willing to fight?”

“Of course. I have
seen too many innocents die,” he replied.

“Good. Do you have
a place you can stay?” I asked.

“My greenhouse,” he
replied.

“Won’t they look
there?” I asked.

“Follow me. I’ll
show you how I plan to be hidden,” he said starting off down the alleyway. We
followed him around the corner onto the main street that led away from the
industrial district. We passed by all the houses of the middle class citizens.
These houses were significantly nicer than the houses that were around mine.
They still were small but were updated better. I threw my hood up to hide my
face since I was a wanted fugitive. It was a strange feeling to be wanted in my
own city. Pan reached into his bag and pulled out a mask. He slid it on his
head and hid his face. The mask was gray with white slanted marks near where
his mouth would be. His eyes were revealed by two small holes.

“Where did you get
that?” I asked.

“I bought it and
made some modifications,” replied Pan. He pulled out a pair of goggles and slid
them on his face. The black lenses hid his eyes completely.

“That’s
horrifying,” I said.

“It will help
conceal me in the darkness. If they are using night vision, they won’t be able
to see my eyes,” he said.

“That’s a good
plan,” Vine said, “You will all need to keep your faces hidden. Kraken is
trying desperately to find you.”

“I’ll let the other
three know when we get back to Sanctum that they need to find something to hide
their faces,” I said.

We continued on
through the maze of a city. We came upon Vine’s greenhouse which sat nestled
behind the market. It was a large glass building with an abundance of large
trees and shrubs growing inside and pressing against the glass. Vine pushed the
door open and revealed the large indoor room. Rows of planters on tables lined
the room. Vine entered and once we were inside, closed the door behind us. He
walked around the room pounding his heel in various places until the low
thudding sound became a higher toned clinking. He slammed his foot as hard as
he could and a panel slid open revealing a staircase. He waved for us to follow
and we descended into the depths of the greenhouse. We reached the basement and
Vine flicked a switch on the wall. The lights flickered to life and revealed
some sort of fallout shelter. The room had stockpiles of ammunition and cases
of weapons. There were boxes of armor and cases of food rations.

“What is this
place?” I asked.

“An old resistance
stronghold. They installed it as a secret storage room in case they needed a place
to fall back to. After the resistance fell, I stumbled across it and erected
the greenhouse as a cover. It was easy to get the plants so quickly with my
power and I had some help putting up the walls,” Vine replied.

“This will work
fine,” Pan said looking around.

“You should stay
here Pan,” Vine said, “I have plenty of room and it is the safest place inside
the city aside from the tower.”

“I think I will. No
offense to Jet, but her house doesn’t feel too safe,” Pan said to me.

“I agree.
Especially since Flint, her dad, works for Kraken. I can’t imagine it will be
too long before they start keeping tabs on her house,” I said.

“You should
probably get back to Sanctum soon. It may be easier for you to get out with the
pandemonium we caused at the lab,” Pan said, “Here is the data from the
terminal in the warehouse.”

“You’re right. I’ll
be in contact soon,” I said taking the disk from him. I exited the greenhouse
and scanned my surroundings to make sure that no one was around. I slipped my
earpiece back in and took flight. I tried my best to avoid any light that could
reveal me. I sailed safely through the air and out of the city. The cool air
felt good against my skin. I crossed the land between the city and Sanctum
until I reached the entrance. I slowly hovered down and landed in front of the
doorway. With a flick of my hand, I removed my hood and entered Sanctum. Frost
was sitting at the table alone. He was reading through a stack of papers. I
took my cloak off and slung it over a chair and exhaled sharply. Frost looked
up slowly and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“It’s so late,”
said Frost.

“I know. I hadn’t
planned on being back this late,” I said filling a cup up with water at the
sink.

“What kept you?”
Frost said setting the papers down.

“It’s probably best
if I tell all of you at the same time,” I said.

“Flare just went to
bed and Jet has been asleep for hours,” he replied.

“I guess it could
wait until morning,” I said.

“What is it?” he
asked somewhat more impatiently.

“Okay. I’ll fill
them in tomorrow,” I said, “So you know that Pan wanted to see me right?”

“Yeah of course,”
he replied.

“Well I went to see
him and he told me he found something big,” I said.

“What did he find?”
he asked.

“Spikers,” I said.

“Spikers? Where?”
he asked.

“In a warehouse. They
were in cryo tubes,” I replied.

“How did they get
there?” he asked.

“That’s the crazy
part. We thought Kraken had been killing them when they rounded them up. They
have been collecting them,” I replied.

“For what?” he
asked.

“Operation
Armageddon,” I replied.

“What do they have
to do with Armageddon?” he asked sitting up straight in his chair.

“They have been
duplicating their powers somehow and are implanting them all into one man,
Armageddon, to unleash on the city I’m guessing,” I said taking a drink from
the cup.

“I could never have
imagined. How did you find all this out?” he asked.

“We took a list and
some other data for Jet to analyze from a terminal in the warehouse and it set
off an alarm. I woke up one of the spikers to help us. His name is Vine and he
took out the guards in no time flat. He was organizing resistance when he was
taken so he is helping us. He has a base of operations and Pan has moved there.
It is much safer than Jet’s house,” I said.

Frost said with a
bewildered look on his face. “That’s incredible. We are in serious trouble if
they finish Armageddon,” he said.

“I know. That’s why
we are going to take the rest of the spikers and use them to fight Kraken. We
have an army and their names, powers and threat levels are all on this,” I said
holding the disk up.

“We will all have
to look at it tomorrow and formulate a plan,” he said.

“Agreed. Oh before
I forget,” I said as he started to stand up, “Vine and Pan think we should all
wear some sort of mask or disguise to cover our face when we are in the city.
If we are spotted, it could mean trouble for us.”

“We all have to
have a ridiculous getup like yours?” he asked.

“If you think mine
is crazy,” I said, “You should see the mask Pan is wearing now.”