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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rodrigo Istalindir" data-source="post: 4276966" data-attributes="member: 2810">Rodrigo -- Match 14Part 2    That night, I lay awake on the bed in the infirmary back in Cornish.  My thoughts were chaotic.  With that technique, they could create a whole new generation of holy warriors.  They’d be fearless, controllable, and if she was right and they could infect anyone with the parasite, they could infiltrate st about anywhere.  This was a damn sight more than I’d agreed to when I signed on as her courier.  And if I judged correctly, she was going to take some of her pets back to Canada with her.  I couldn’t let that happen.    I dressed quietly, and pressed my ear against the door.  I could hear faint movement and the sound of steady, regular breathing.  They’d posted a guard.  Smart.  Only one guard.  Not so smart.    I eased the door open, reached out, and broke his neck.*    I may be a techno-tard when it comes to math and science, but computers and technology I know, and I’m a pretty damned good hacker.  The security system at the facility was functional,  but the Enclave was still a backwater, and the stuff in the real world was light-years ahead of them.  I barely even broke a sweat.    I didn’t have much of a plan.  I was outnumbered and out gunned, so I figured my best bet was to grab some proof and get it to the authorities as anonymously as possible.  Escape should be easy; all the vehicles in the Enclave were old-school non-AI models, so it would be trivial to hotwire one and get to the border.    I snuck through the darkened laboratories, which were mercifully deserted this late at night.  Professional habit had made me memorize the way in on my earlier visit, so I managed to get to the worm lab without getting lost more than once or twice.    I searched until I found the refrigerator, but it was empty.  No sign of the cooler.   Crap.  I felt the first stirrings of panic and suppressed them.  The sudden burst of adrenaline must have helped, because it made me remember the microscope.  I crossed the lab, making my way back to the bench where she’d showed me the worm.    The area had been cleaned, but on the table next to the scope was a row of test tubes, with ‘G. Sanctus’ written on white labels.  I pocketed the samples and left the lab.*    Maybe I wasn’t as good as I thought I was, or maybe I just wasn’t used to working on older systems, but I must have missed something on my way in.  Outside the facility I could hear cars and shouting, and flashlights played over the windows.      I juggled the odds in my head, realized I had a snowball’s chance in hell of making it out the front way, and decided to head for the hills.  Hopefully the soda freaks were tuckered out after a long day of making Mentos fountains.    It was a moonless night, which helped, but this time of year the nights were short, and I knew I wouldn’t have long before daybreak.  I made my way up the path, hoping to put some fast distance between me and my pursuers before looking for another way down the mountain.      The fence was unlocked, which worried me, but I could hear the security team moving up the hill, and didn’t want to waste time backtracking to find a way around the compound.  I pulled the gate closed behind me and snapped the lock shut.  It wouldn’t slow them for a second, but maybe if they saw it was locked they’d waste a few minutes wondering if I’d come that way.    I scurried past the clearing, seeing now that there were little Quonset huts set back a little ways where the Coke-cultists presumably lived.  Beyond that, the trail continued.  Mentally crossing my fingers, I dashed past the dorms and back into the brush.  So far, so good.    Dawn was just breaking when I came to a large tree.  One huge limb stretched out across the path, and a solitary figure sat perched upon it, motionless, facing away from me.  (Image 4) I realized it was Dr. Kelly.  I couldn’t tell what she was watching, but it certainly had her attention.  There was no way I could sneak past her, though.  The tree stood atop a rocky hill, and to either side of the path I was on the foliage was thick and brittle.  No matter how careful I was, I’d sound like an infantry battalion trying to get through that way.  That left the path, or backtracking.    If I had to kill her, I wouldn’t lose any sleep, but I figured I could take her out before she could alert anyone.  I figured my best shot was to sneak underneath the limb, grab her feet and yank her off her roost.  A quick thump to the head, and she’d be out of it long enough for me to get away.    I was ten feet away when she whirled and pointed the gun at me.  I started to doubt I was as good as I’d thought I was.    “No sudden moves, Charlie,” she said, pointing a small but lethal handgun at my gut.    She touched the side of her head and whispered something.  In the early light I saw a Bluetooth headset stuck in her ear.  I didn’t think, I just moved.    She got off one shot before I got underneath her, the bullet tearing a furrow along my side.  I snagged one dangling foot and pulled hard.  She screamed and fell to the ground, still clutching the pistol.  I dove on her, scrambling to keep the gun away from me.  I grabbed her forearm and slammed her hand into the dirt until she dropped the weapon.  Rolling across her, I got her in a headlock and started to squeeze.    The sound of shattering glass caught me by surprise, and a second later she started to shriek.  At least one of the test tubes in my pocket had shattered, and a long spear of glass was embedded in her cheek.   I pushed her away, momentarily more interested in making sure I hadn’t gotten cut by one of the tubes than in incapacitating her.    I gingerly opened the cargo pocket on my pants.  All but one of the tubes had broken, but it looked like the inside lining was tougher than the outside, and I didn’t think any of the glass had broken through.  I didn’t know for sure how the parasite entered the body, but I figured open wounds were a good start.    Like someone had thrown a switch, the shrieking stopped.  I looked at Dr. Kelly as she calmly removed the glass dagger from her cheek.  She showed no signs of panic, or fear.  I picked the gun up off the ground and started to leave.    When I turned back to the path, I saw what she had been watching.  There was a large cave at the base of the hill that supported the tree.  In a clearing in front of the cave stood a clan of black bears, gazing into the rising sun.   They began to what I can only describe as chant, their throaty roars rising and falling in an eerie semblance of human singing.  They seemed oblivious to me, so I cautiously made my way around behind them.    I reached the far side without incident, the bears still fixated on the rising sun.  I saw movement back from the way I’d come.  Dr. Kelly walked slowly into the clearing, stood next to the tallest of the ursine worshippers, and opened her mouth.  (Image 5)    Her pleasant contralto was a nice complement to the bears’ baritone.    Off in the distance, I heard the approaching security team.  I looked back at Dr. Kelly, and thought about the remaining test tube.      Kelly wasn’t going to doing much lab work from here on out, I didn’t think.  And sending the sample to the Feds wouldn’t stop someone in the Enclave from trying to take her place, it would just give the bio-geeks that worked in the Federal labs a head-start on their own formula.    I carefully took it from my pocket, dropped it on the ground, and crushed it beneath my boot.    From my hidden vantage point, I saw one of the security guards try to pull Dr. Kelly from the bear circle.  They didn’t much like having their sun ritual disturbed.   While the remaining guards debated whether or not to shoot the bears or leave them alone, I made my escape.</blockquote>

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