GRIDER

 

Tuesday January 14 - 2210 MST

Five hours and twenty minutes until Turbocharger activates

 

They were bringing gurneys onto the MH-53 while the engines were still running hot. Whatever was going on, the Praetorians were in a hurry.

The stretchers were extra large industrial-strength models like the kind used to roll patients into an ambulance, except these were made for especially heavy people. Kuzmin's men manhandled the three Primes onto the rolling gurneys and then took them off the chopper, straight to a L-100 turbo prop plane painted out in Praetorian colors. The propellers were already spinning and armed men were waiting for us on the ramp.

"Where are you taking them?" Priestley raised his voice to be heard over the whine of the idling engines.

Kuzmin just jogged in silence next to the stretcher bearers. Despite the phrasing of the question, I knew Priestley was only interested in one of the Primes. Again, I was reminded that I would need to have a long talk with him about exos. Still, Kuzmin owed us some answers.

I made eye contact so he couldn't pretend he didn't know I was talking to him. "Where are we going?"

He stopped finally at the edge of the ramp and extended a hand to me. But it wasn't to shake. He thumped me on the chest with two fingers. "You are not going anywhere. We are going on special mission."

That sent my mental gears spinning. This was the first I'd heard of another mission for tonight. As big as the day had been we should be sitting in a conference room doing a detailed debrief and catching some rest before going out on another hop. It might have been the Turbocharger project they'd been mentioning but if it was they left me out of it. That would make the most sense but it didn't answer the question of why the Primes had to be drugged for that.

Priestley looked equally baffled. I was about to hit Kuzmin with some high impact questions when a van rolled up beside us. It was one of the vans that ferried people between the Underground and the outside world. This one was packed to the brim with armed Praetorians. As they disembarked I saw that they had one non-merc among them. I couldn't see his face but I saw his struggling form within the man-sized bag as he was unceremoniously dragged out of the back of the van. There was only one time I'd seen this particular bag before and that was because it was custom made to hold a very specific Prime with a very specific power. He was the very first one we'd come across and a very bad dude. I could feel my anger rising at the thought of someone like Kuzmin being careless enough to bring that son of a bitch out of C-Watch.

"You can't be serious, Kuzmin." I stared at him incredulously. "That's Photon. He can not be out of his cell. He'll kill you and your men."

Kuzmin stared back at me. "We need four. He goes."

One of Kuzmin's goons sent an elbow into the struggling form in the black sack. The struggling stopped immediately.

That was when the last piece of the puzzle clicked into place for Priestley. His fists were balling up and I could see what was coming next even before he took a swing at Kuzmin. "You're kidnapping her, you asshole."

Kuzmin saw the swing coming too and got a hand up in time to deflect the punch enough that it landed on his ear instead of giving him a black eye. Praetorians came rushing down the ramp with guns drawn. Before I could say "knock it off, kid" we had about twelve muzzles shoved in our faces, and a matching number of angry glares ready to do us bodily harm on Kuzmin's word.

I had an arm around Priestley keeping him from digging himself any farther into this hole. He was already pretty far in. "That's enough, man. You gotta pick your battles, and this ain't one you can win."

Times like these remind me that sometimes the best thing to calm hot anger is some cold steel. All those gun barrels did the trick and Priestley stopped his struggling.

There was an exchange of white hot, angry stares and then the Praetorians retreated into the hold of the L-100. Priestley and I were treated to a mouthful of dusty prop wash as the plane pulled away.