Houston Run

Chapter Eight

The young guard in the black uniform, a tray of food in his hands, entered Stasis Cell 43 and paused, puzzled.

The one in buckskins was still unconscious.

The guard advanced to within four feet of the prisoner. Any closer and the stasis bubbles would effect him. He peered at the captive’s face. Why was the man still out like a light? he wondered. The prisoner should have recovered hours ago.

The man in the buckskins was suspended in midair between two of the humming black bubbles. His chin was slumped on his chest.

The guard lowered the tray to the floor. Perhaps the prisoner had sustained an internal injury, he speculated. He knew the captive’s file indicated a head blow was the cause of the unconsciousness. Should he call Medical and have them send over a Med-Tech? The guard decided he wouldn’t. If he phoned up a Med-Tech, and the prisoner wasn’t seriously injured, it would make him look foolish.

So what should he do?

The guard was in a quandary. He was required to feed the prisoner.

The usual procedure was to deposit the tray near a captive, then deactivate the stasis field and quickly step back, his hand on his baton, and wait until the meal was consumed. But this prisoner could hardly eat his meal while unconscious.

There was only one feasible recourse.

The guard elected to rouse the captive himself. He walked to the left wall and pressed a black button situated at shoulder height. Immediately, the humming emanating from the stasis bubbles became fainter and fainter, finally ending altogether. As the humming decreased in intensity, the prisoner gradually slumped to the floor. He wound up on his forehead and knees, his arms splayed from his sides.

“Let’s have a look at you,” the guard remarked, and stepped over to the captive and knelt down. “Why aren’t you awake?” he asked, reaching for the prisoner’s shoulders.

“Who says I’m not?” the buckskin-clad figure replied, and came up off the floor in a rush, his fists clenched.

Startled, the guard grabbed for the baton in the sheath on his right hip.

The man in the buckskins was faster. His left fist clipped the astonished guard on the jaw, sending him sprawling. The guard tried to scramble erect, but a crushing right fist connected with his left cheek, knocking him to the floor, dazing him.

“Don’t move!” the prisoner snapped, yanking the baton from the sheath and raising it over his head. “Don’t even twitch, or I’ll bash your head in!”

The guard, flat on his back, froze. He’d used the steel baton on numerous occasions and was well aware of the damage one could inflict.

“Where’s my hardware?” the prisoner demanded.

“Your what?” the guard said nervously.

“My hardware! My irons! My guns!” the man in buckskins declared angrily.

“I don’t know.”

The prisoner’s mouth curled downward, and he elevated the baton a little higher, his blue eyes on the silver disk in the guard’s forehead.

“Honest, I don’t!” the guard stated anxiously. “Your weapons were confiscated before they brought you here. We’re not allowed to touch a gun. They’re illegal in Androxia for anyone except Superiors.”

“Damn!” the prisoner snapped in annoyance. “I don’t savvy half of what you said. Androxia? Superiors? What are you yappin’ about?”

The guard didn’t know what to say.

“Where’s my pard?” the prisoner inquired angrily.

“Your what?”

“My pard. Blade. He was captured about the same time I was,” the man in buckskins said.

The guard suddenly recalled the name on the prisoner’s file.

“You’re called Hickok, right?”

Hickok leaned forward menacingly. “I know that, horseshit for brains!

What I don’t know is where Blade is! Now where is he?”

The guard gulped, his brown eyes riveted on the baton. “He’s in the next cell over. Number forty-four.”

“Take me to him!” Hickok directed.

The guard slowly stood. “You won’t get away with this,” he remarked.

“Did I ask your opinion?” Hickok rejoined.

The youthful guard led Hickok from Stasis Cell 43 and took a left in the corridor outside.

Hickok scanned the corridor. The walls, floor, and ceiling were white, like those in the cell. Square lights recessed in the ceiling lit the hallway, revealing dozens of doors on both sides, each with a red number near the top. No one else was in the corridor. “Where are the other guards?” he asked.

“I’m the only one on duty,” the guard replied.

“Don’t lie to me!” Hickok warned.

“I’m not lying,” the guard insisted. “There’s only one guard per block on night shift.”

They reached the next door, Number 44.

“This is it,” the guard announced.

“Open it,” Hickok ordered.

The guard reached to the left of the door, pressing a black button on the wall.

The door to Cell 44 hissed open.

Hickok saw Blade suspended in the cell between two of the black bubbles. He took a step forward, concentrating on his friend.

And the guard struck. He lunged, his arms extended, and he succeeded in wrapping them around the Warrior’s waist as the gunman spun to confront him.

Hickok felt the guard’s right shoulder drive into his stomach, and he was propelled off his feet and slammed onto his back in the cell, the guard on top of him.

The guard raised up, swinging his right fist at the Warrior’s face.

Hickok twisted his head to the left, and the guard’s blow glanced off his cheek. Before the guard could regain his balance and punch again, Hickok let him have it with the baton, his right arm sweeping up and around, smashing the steel baton on the guard’s thin lips, crushing several of his teeth, and causing the guard to abruptly go limp and slump backwards to the floor, blood trickling from his mouth.

Hickok quickly rose. “Blasted vermin!” he muttered, and kicked the guard in the face for good measure. He turned, and found Blade’s eyes on him. “What are you lookin’ at?” He moved to the left wall, searching for a black button similar to the one the guard had pressed in his cell. The stupid kid had believed he was unconscious, but he had been playing possum, and he’d seen everything the guard had done.

Blade’s eyes followed the gumman’s movements.

Hickok spied the black button. “Have you free in a sec, pard,” he said, and stabbed the button.

Instantly, the humming tapered off as the black bubbles grew silent.

Blade’s massive body eased to the floor, onto his knees. He tentatively moved his arms and worked his jaw muscles. “You did it!” he said after a minute, elated.

“Naturally,” Hickok stated. “It was a piece of cake.”

Blade slowly stood. “How’d you do it?”

“I’ll tell you about it later,” Hickok said. “Right now, we’d best vamoose before more guards show up.”

“Do you know where we are?” Blade inquired.

“Nope,” Hickok said. “Some kind of prison, it looks like.”

Blade walked to the doorway. “Are there any more guards around here?”

“I don’t think so,” Hickok said.

“Any idea what they did with our weapons?” Blade queried.

Hickok wagged the baton at the prostrate guard. “That cow chip told me they were confiscated. I don’t know where they are.”

Blade frowned. “Did a woman named Clarissa come to see you?”

Hickok shook his head. “No. Why? Your missus is going to be mighty ticked off if she finds out you’ve been steppin’ out on her.”

“Very funny,” Blade stated. “Have you ever heard her name before?”

“Clarissa? It doesn’t sound familiar,” Hickok mentioned. “Why? Who is she?”

“She claims to have been in love with the Doktor—” Blade began.

“The Doktor?” Hickok interrupted. “That scum!”

“And she might be the reason we’re here,” Blade went on.

“How so?” Hickok probed.

“She showed up in my cell,” Blade elaborated. “Said something about getting revenge for what I did to the Doktor.”

“So that’s why those silver varmints came to the Home?” Hickok asked.

“Evidently,” Blade said.

“I sure hope I bump into this Clarissa,” Hickok remarked. “I want to thank her, personal-like, for all the trouble she’s put us through.”

“I have the feeling our troubles are just beginning,” Blade commented.

“Brother!” Hickok exclaimed in mock indignation. “A few measly clouds appear on your horizon, and you go all to pieces, don’t you?”

Blade ignored the barb and stepped into the corridor. “Which way do you think we should go?”

Hickok joined his fellow Warrior. “Makes no never-mind to me, pard. You’re the head Warrior. You decide.”

“Thanks,” Blade said, and moved to the right.

“We’ve got to find our where the blazes we are,” Hickok noted.

“And find a way of returning to the Home,” Blade said. “Do you know how they brought us here?”

“Yep. In some fancy flyin’ contraption,” Hickok disclosed.

“You saw it?”

“Sure did. You were out cold when they brought you on board. I tried to save you, but those silver guys are hard to stop,” Hickok said.

“Don’t I know it,” Blade concurred.

Hickok abruptly halted, his expression betraying shock.

Blade stopped. “What’s the matter with you?”

“It just hit me!” Hickok declared. “We’d best check out all of these holding cells.”

“Why?”

“Because the runt and his two shadows might be prisoners,” Hickok said.

Blade’s brow creased in consternation. The gunman used the term “runt” to describe only one person: Lynx. “Are you telling me that Lynx, Ferret, and Gremlin might be here too?”

“Afraid so,” Hickok said.

“What did you do?” Blade asked. “Bring the whole Family along?”

“They snuck on board the aircraft with me,” Hickok explained. “I don’t know what happened to the dummies. We hid out when the silver yahoos came on the aircraft. I didn’t see hide nor hair of ’em after that.”

Blade scanned the length of the corridor. “Do you know how long it will take to search every cell?”

“It wasn’t my fault,” Hickok reiterated.

Blade sighed and moved to the nearest door. “How do we open one of these.”

Hickok nodded toward the black button on the wall. “Press that.”

Blade did, and the cell door hissed open. The cell was empty. “This will take forever,” he remarked.

Hickok glanced to their left, then suddenly grabbed Blade’s right wrist and pulled him into the cell.

“What is it?” Blade queried.

“The door at the end of the hall was opening,” Hickok said. “I didn’t wait to see who it was.”

Blade spotted another black button on the interior wall near the door and pressed it. The door closed.

Hickok pressed his ear to the door. “I can hear somebody comin’,” he stated.

Blade placed his right ear to the door. He could hear the tread of multiple footsteps in the corridor, increasing in volume as they neared the door. Voices became audible.

“…until morning,” a deep voice was saying. “I am incapable of fabricating a falsehood. When I told you your friend was not seriously injured, I spoke the truth.”

“But he’s still shaking, yes?” responded a familiar speaker.

“That’s Gremlin!” Hickok whispered.

“His body absorbed an enormous voltage,” the first voice stated.

“Nervous system and muscular control are directly affected. I told you he would recover in an hour. It has not yet been twenty minutes. When you see him in the morning, he will be fully recovered.”

“I hope so,” said a third voice.

“That’s Ferret!” Hickok said.

Blade knew their voices as well as the gunfighter. He frowned, annoyed.

Escape was no longer a simple matter of finding an exit from the prison.

Now they would need to rescue the three mutants, then seek an exit—and in the process increase the risk of detection and recapture. But there was no other option. Lynx, Ferret, and Gremlin were adopted Family members. The three mutants had thrown in with the Family and had aided the Warriors on numerous occasions. Abandoning them was out of the question.

“Where is the guard on duty?” asked the deep voice, sounding as if he was right outside the cell door.

Blade tensed. They had left his cell door open after knocking out the guard! If whoever was out in the corridor kept going, they would reach the open cell and discover the unconscious guard!

“You will remain here while I go back to the guard station at the end of the hall and use their phone,” the deep voice directed. “I’ll patch into the Rice O.D. Locator Computer and have the guard’s location pinpointed within seconds.”

“Is that how you found Barney so fast?” Ferret asked.

“The computer registered Barney’s deviation from his assigned work area the second he departed with you,” the deep voice said.

There was the sound of a single person moving away.

Hickok nudged Blade. “Should we try and free ’em?” he whispered.

Blade shook his head. He leaned next to the gunman’s left ear. “No. We don’t know how many are with them. That one doing all the talking sounded like one of those silver jokers. We’ll wait.”

Hickok nodded.

More talking arose in the corridor.

“Lynx! Lynx! Snap out of it!” Ferret said.

“He’s in bad shape, yes?” Gremlin mentioned.

“I just hope he comes around like that big bastard said he would,” Ferret declared.

Silence.

Blade waited, straining for the faintest sound. Finally, the man with the deep voice returned.

“Most peculiar,” he stated. “The duty guard is in a cell not far ahead.

You four! Check Cell forty-four immediately.”

Boots pounded on the floor. Within ten seconds, someone was shouting from the direction of Cell 44. “He’s in here, RH-10! He’s been attacked!”

“Is he alive?” RH-10 asked. “Yes, sir! But he’s unconscious!”

“Revive him!” RH-10 ordered. His voice lowered. “There must have been an escape. We didn’t pass anyone on the west stairwell, so the escapee might be using the east one. You six! Take the east stairwell to the ground floor. Detain anyone not in uniform.”

“Yes, sir!” someone responded, and boots tramped off to do his bidding.

“You two will remain here. I must return to the guard station and activate the alarm,” RH-10 said. He walked off.

Blade’s mind was racing. If he’d understood RH-10’s directions, then Hickok and he were in a cell on the north side of the hallway. To the left was east, to the right west. RH-10, obviously one of the silver men, was heading for the west end of the corridor, where the guard station was apparently located. Six other men were on their way to the stairwell at the east end. Four more were in Cell 44. And only two were guarding Lynx and others.

“Should we try and free ’em now?” Hickok questioned softly.

Blade thoughtfully chewed on his lower lip. There were only two avenues of escape from the cell block, the two stairwells. The silver man was at the west end, the six others on the east side.

Even if Lynx, Ferret and Gremlin could be freed, how could the five of them manage to use the stairwells unseen? The answer was simple: they couldn’t. He glanced at Hickok and shook his head.

Minutes elapsed.

Someone in the corridor coughed.

The next moment the entire corridor was rocked by the blaring wail of klaxons.

Blade’s frustration was mounting. They had been so close to freedom!

And now they were trapped inside the prison, while their enemies were scouring every nook and cranny to find them. He felt cornered and helpless, and the short hairs on the nape of his neck were tingling. Out of the frying pan, into the fire!