Chapter 9
It was noon exactly when Lydecker’s convoy deployed itself all over the base, sealing off all possible exits. Lydecker walked right into the office of the base commanding officer, General Yates. Yates was a man of about sixty, but still had the build of a young soldier. He regarded Lydecker with a suspicious eye.
“Can I help you with something, Deck?”
“I need your cooperation for the apprehension of a fugitive, General. One who has taken residence on your base.”
“What’s the name? Which officer?”
“No officer. An X5,”
“You posted one here?”
“No, General. A fugitive. One of the twelve that escaped. I need your cooperation in locking down the base until the X5 is apprehended.”
Yates nodded slowly. “You’ve got it.”
“I want the base locked down. No one leaves, no one enters. Major Kinlan and his wife the Lieutenant… are they on duty now?”
“They should be,” The General nodded.
Lydecker turned to the soldiers behind him. “Smith, Todd, you get to their offices and keep them there. And see if they’ve seen her.”
“Just who is this X5?”
“Ivy Kinlan.” Lydecker remarked.
“That little string bean?” General Yates blurted out. “Jeez, Deck, when you say appearances are deceiving I hope you’re right. I saw that girl out walking this morning, seemed like she was more worried about flunking algebra than running from you.”
“She probably is,” Lydecker remarked. If Ivy had unknowingly been telling him the truth yesterday, then she had no idea where she was or what she was. “Can we confirm that she hasn’t left?”
“Of course.”
A few minutes later, Lydecker was watching a surveillance feed from one of the many cameras on the base. The cameras had caught Ivy walking back towards the residential area several minutes before, but she had disappeared from their range so it had become a guessing game.
* * * *
The smell of garbage wafted from the open dumpster besides where Ivy was sitting on a step behind the mess hall. She was shaking her head to try and clear her thoughts. She wanted to punch herself for being so stupid. You didn’t know any better. In the couple of months she had come face to face with Lydecker and it seemed like he didn’t suspect her. Hopefully he didn’t.
She’d managed to get away from Jack after insisting she was fine and refusing his offer to drive her home. She didn’t want to go home. She needed the time to think. Staring down at her hands, she ran her thumb over a scar she recalled getting from a tree branch when she was six during an ordinance drill. Most of her memory had come back, but then she couldn’t really tell if there were things she still didn’t know. The emotional trauma must have been from the shock of the escape, probably seeing Eva dead more likely. Losing a sister had cost Ivy her memory of that event and everything associated with it.
Ivy became aware of a stray dog scrounging through the trashcans nearby. The dog stopped, looked up at her for a moment and barked. “Yeah, I know I probably smell like a cat,” Ivy remarked.
The door behind Ivy opened and a man in a white apron stepped out. “Get away from here!” The man shook a kitchen rag at the dog. The mutt fled and the man turned and stopped in surprise. “What are you doing back here? Not looking for scraps I hope.”
“Certainly not,” Ivy shrugged. “Sort of hiding.”
“Yeah, well, you sit by that dumpster long enough and everyone’s gonna know where you’ve been hiding,” He smiled politely. “I don’t think I’ve seen you before. You someone’s kid?”
Ivy nodded. “Major Kinlan.”
“What are you hiding from?”
Ivy sighed. “Life. My past has come back to swallow me whole.”
The man sat down on the step next to her. “You might be thinking a lowly cook like me might have some valuable advice in this scenario, but I don’t.”
“That would be cliché,” Ivy replied. She stood. “I might as well just go and face it.”
“That’s the spirit. Try and-“
Ivy wasn’t paying attention. A familiar and distressing sound was buzzing in the distance. She found herself staring towards the road down the alleyway. Ivy glanced upward. The flat roof would be her best bet to see what was approaching. She glanced at the man and half-smiled before running around the corner and jumping. She caught the edge of the roof with one hand and pulled herself up. She hit the ground after moving a few feet towards the edge of the roof.
In the distance she made out Lydecker standing in front of the command office with a group of soldiers. The Hummer she had heard was parked nearby and unfortunately it wasn’t the only one. She could spot three beyond the base perimeter fence along with accompanying gunmen dressed in black protective gear. Ivy cursed beneath her breath. Either another X5 was loose or Lydecker was looking for her.
“You know the name of the game, 825,” Ivy told herself. “Escape and evade.” She was safe for the moment. They would likely search the grounds first. If only she could find a way out before they got to her.
* * * *
Lydecker walked through the front door of the empty Kinlan house. After an hour of searching the base Ivy had not been sighted. There was no sign of Ivy anywhere, but they knew she was still on the base. The fact that she had not been found out in the open told him that she must have remembered something. The girl was smart, but there was no way she would be able to break the perimeter now. It would have been more difficult to box her in if it had not been an Army base with a wire-topped fence.
He left Lieutenant Smith keeping watch and ascended the stairs to approach an open door. It was a bedroom obviously belonging to a teenage girl judging from the assortment of makeup on the dresser top. The bed was made, but several clothing items were tossed carelessly across the comforter. On the desk, a stack of textbooks ranged from ‘History of Music’ to ‘Evolutionary Genetics’. Off in the corner, a folded up music stand was leaned against the wall next to an open instrument case. The cello itself was lazily leaning against the desk chair. For a renowned young musician she certainly didn’t show it in the care of her possessions. The musical talent was partially from her enhanced DNA and partially hereditary. Lydecker’s wife had been a violinist. He had never taken much of a liking to it until after his wife had died and he had gone through a period of clinging to any remote aspect of her life. Before the drinking had started.
Lydecker stepped into the room and noted the numerous unframed photographs hanging along the far wall, mainly of Jack and Mary, a few were of Ivy with her cello. Beneath them he noted a fist sized hole in the drywall, perhaps an indication that a transgenic occupied the room, but not the only one. Among the various bottles littering the dresser, he spotted an orange prescription vial. Tryptophan. Lydecker picked it up. He studied the contents, only three pills were left. Her seizures must have been bad lately. Of course he had no confirmation that this girl was in fact his Ivy, nothing more than pure instinct. He trusted his instincts in this matter. If he didn’t bring her in, then the task was likely to fall to someone who would rather put a bullet in her head. He wanted her alive. He wanted her home.
“Sir!” Smith’s voice was filled with urgency as he shouted from downstairs. “She’s surfaced!”
Lydecker rushed down the stairs. He faced the man. “Where?”
“They’ve engaged near the south perimeter.”
“Let’s go!”
* * * *
Ivy was fending off the last straggler from a trio of soldiers who happened to wander down the wrong alley. It had been easy enough to get the jump on them; they obviously weren’t expecting her to come from above. The last man had long since lost his gun and was keeping up a pathetic attempt at hand-to-hand. Ivy blocked two punches and swung around for a kick when he caught her off guard. His fist plowed into her face and she was knocked to the ground. Ivy found herself facing a turned over trashcan, complete with a lid. She seized the metal lid with both hands and spun around, leaping onto her feet, while bringing her makeshift weapon down hard across the man’s cranium. He staggered for a moment before falling to the ground unconscious.
Ivy caught her breath and pushed back the hair that had fallen over her face. There would be more coming. Static on a radio caught her attention. She knelt down and unclipped the radio from the man’s belt.
The speaker crackled and then a voice came through. “Delta three, repeat your status. Do you have her?” It was Lydecker. Ivy avoided urge to stomp on the radio. Hearing an engine nearby, she pocketed the radio and fled.
* * * *
Lydecker cursed as he surveyed the scene. Two men were standing, nursing head wounds, while a third was still unconscious. Obviously Ivy knew what she was doing. She would have only had a few minutes to run. He turned to one of the men. “Report.”
“She came out of nowhere, Sir. Hit me in the face with my own gun, knocked Kennedy out in one kick.”
“X5’s have a tendency to do that,” Lydecker said. He turned to Lieutenant Smith who was standing beside him. “Fan out. She couldn’t have gone far. We’re gonna find her.”
* * * *
Ivy sat crouched behind the motor pool. It was quiet for the moment. She wiped at her face to find blood on her hand. That soldier had nearly broken her nose. She likely just had a really bad bruise on her face. If she kept this up much longer then a bloody nose would be the most minor of her injuries. X5s weren’t bulletproof no matter how strong or tough they could be. She didn’t doubt Lydecker would try to shoot her. He hadn’t hesitated with Eva. Ivy didn’t want to attack him, she just wanted to escape. That would mean leaving her family behind. She had no other options.
* * * *
“We’re not finding her,” Smith said, hefting his gun. “She might’ve gotten away.”
Lydecker thought for a moment. Or she’s monitoring our communications. “Kennedy, where’s your radio?”
The soldier looked down at his belt as he reached for where the radio should be. His hands found nothing. “It’s gone, Sir.”
“Damn!” Lydecker cursed. He picked up his radio. “Ivy, we know you’re listening. This charade isn’t going to last much longer. If you’ve been listening, then you know where we are. Give yourself up. There’s no use running.” His words were broadcast through the radios all the men carried, but he could have sworn there was a stray echo that came from a different direction.
Lydecker listened carefully. He hit the call button on the radio and sure enough it echoed through the five radios within visible sight. But a stray tone caught his ear. It was only audible for a fraction of a second over the other radios, but the tone had come from above. Lydecker’s breath froze as he reached for his gun.
The roof of the office building next to them had a flat roof, but the actual floor of it was concealed by a ledge. The sound was coming from there as well. “Smith, go check it out.”
Smith nodded, but before he could move there was there was the flash of a shadow visible for a moment on the rooftop.
“She’s on the roof!” Lydecker shouted. “Find her!”
Lydecker threw himself towards the nearest roof access ladder and scrambled up it in pursuit of the girl. He was fast enough to see her leap to the ground from a building in the distance, towards the base gate. She was getting desperate if she was going to try and get out that way.
* * * *
Ivy knew she was being followed. The idea of shadowing their movements had worked for a while, but it had inevitably given up her position. Now she was moving stealthily through the shadows cast by the afternoon sun. From what she had seen of the perimeter, it was locked tight. That didn’t mean she couldn’t make it. If she jumped the fence she might be able to make a run for it on foot, but it was guaranteed that Lydecker had men waiting for her to do just that. She barely breathed as she withdrew behind the cover of a jeep. Her other option was to hotwire a vehicle and ram her way through the defenses, but she’d seen the armament of black Hummers parked by all the base gates.
There was static from the radio. She should have dropped it. The voice of Lydecker came through again, “Ivy, I know you’re scared. I also know that you’re doing what I taught you. Monitoring comms, scoping out hiding places, planning an escape route. It’s not going to work, Ivy. Come home.”
Ivy wanted to get on the radio and rebuke all his words, but she would likely only draw attention to herself if someone heard her talking. Before she could do anything more, a new sound greeted her enhanced hearing. It was a metallic whirring from a distance off – a helicopter.
“felgercarb,” Ivy cursed. She had to get undercover now. Or inside. She ducked into another alley and flattened against the wall just as two soldiers passed- ordinary army, not Lydecker’s men and they were just going about their business. She waited for them to pass and then went out and tried the first door she found. It was just a supply warehouse and the door was locked, but she gave the doorknob a swift kick and it swung open. Ivy stepped in and shut the door behind her.
“We’ve got her cornered!” Kennedy shouted. “Surveillance cameras caught her running for cover. Delta two’s already got the area surrounded.”
“They’d better be right this time,” Lydecker said as he got into the Hummer with the TAC team. They sped off for the other side of the base.
* * * *
Ivy heard the engines dying and the sound of combat boots on the pavement. A shadow passed over the window above her head. She was crouched behind a row of metal shelves stocked with cardboard boxes. She was surrounded and she knew it.
There was a crash as something shattered the window. It was followed by a metallic clank and Ivy knew instantly to expect the room to fill with smoke in the next few seconds. She stayed hidden and waited as she heard the doors slam open and footsteps poured in.
“There!” Someone shouted and Ivy knew she’d been seen.
She ran from her hiding place and came face to face with a TAC team soldier. The man seemed more stunned than anything else; his face was half obscured behind a gas mask. Ivy didn’t hesitate to strike at him in that instant and knocked the man down without a second thought. She grabbed his rifle and raised it into the air to strike at an oncoming man. She never got the chance.
Ivy never heard the gun go off over the sound of footsteps and shouting. A bullet hit her from behind and was followed by another. Ivy froze and glanced down to see two spots of red blood materializing on her shirt.
* * * *
Lydecker pushed past the staring soldiers to approach Ivy. The girl was still standing, staring at her own blood in near shock. He knew she would collapse any instant.
“We need a medical evac!” Lydecker shouted at the top of his lungs. He turned back to the girl.
Ivy’s eyes opened wide. “I trusted you!”
“Ivy, you’re surrounded.”
“See if I let that stop me!”
“You’ll bleed to death.”
“I don’t give a felgercarb!”
She turned slowly to look at the faces of the men around her. Ten stoic-faced men just looked back at her over the muzzles of their rifles.
“Don’t try anything,” Lydecker said firmly.
“What are you gonna do, Deck?” Ivy questioned, her voice was shaky and laced with apparent pain. “Shoot me?”
Their eyes met. Lydecker swallowed. He had never realized it before now. She had his eyes. This was his Ivy, his own daughter. He found himself looking into the face of his dead wife. “Ivy…”
Another gun shot echoed through the room and Ivy collapsed.
Lydecker stared in disbelief for a moment before he realized someone was standing beside him.
Jim McGinnis was returning his gun to its holster. He half smirked at Lydecker. “It’s like I told you, Deck. The committee wants the X5 situation resolved. Looks like I just resolved one loose end for you.”
Lydecker ignored him and knelt down beside the girl. Red blood was seeping through the fabric of her shirt, but amazingly she was still breathing. He stood and in a moment of rage grabbed McGinnis by the collar and slammed his back into the nearest wall. “You almost killed her!”
“Which you should have done, Deck,” McGinnis defended. “Don’t tell me you’re getting soft for your kids. She would have gotten away if I hadn’t done it!”
“She wouldn’t have gotten far.”
McGinnis held up his hands.
Lydecker released him, “Get out of my sight!”
* * * *
Lydecker followed Ivy’s transportation back to Manticore, but was forced to step aside when they finally arrived at the infirmary.
“We’ve got a female X5. Multiple gunshot wounds to the torso. Collapsed lung, bullet might’ve nicked the heart.” The medic shouted as the gurney rushed in.
Lydecker observed the whole scene from behind the glass. He took a deep breath. After ten years he had finally found her. And for what? She just might die right in front of him. He had to admit that he was proud of what she had become. Now all he could do was watch as they worked to save her life.
* * * *
“Sir?”
Lydecker barely noticed the woman in a lab coat standing right beside him. He had been staring through the window for two hours. Now an orderly was cleaning up the operating room. Lydecker sighed and turned to the woman. “Yes, Doctor.”
“Sir, we’ve managed to stabilize 825,” The woman checked her clipboard.
However, with the damage to her heart we’ve had to induce coma.”
“Will she survive?”
“It’s difficult to tell right now, Colonel, but the next forty-eight hours will reveal that.”
Lydecker nodded and dismissed the doctor.
* * * *
I don’t know how soon the next chapter will be up because I have to write a short story and a lit paper for school this week.
Thanks for your reviews!