“Do you think it could break free?” she asked, her eyes still on the creature.
“No, it doesn’t have enough leverage to break the enclosure nor the strength or cunning the Wieraptor had, although it appears intelligent.” A mist sprayed down from attached piping at the top. “It has a continuous source of water in there, where...if it broke free, it couldn’t guarantee its survival.”
“Unless it takes us,” Norah added.
“So, let’s just kill it and be done with it,” Matt sighed.
Norah lifted her eyes away and looked up at Stryker, his hooked nose gleamed from the overhead lights. Her eyes trailed over his face and found it hard and calculating, unmoving in a way only he did, as if he was inside himself, in his systems and not actually present externally. His hair had grown back and the burns that had been on his face after he got hit by lightning had vanished.
He looked exactly as he had when he jumped down through the roof of the research facility. Intimidating, self-assured, and quiet. If Norah had known what was going to happen to them between now and then, she would never have pointed her gun at him.
She would have run into his arms and not let go.
His eyes gleamed as code ran over his irises. They sparked with indigo and electric blue every other moment. Norah blocked out the monster that continued to glare at her beside them.
Just look at him. Not at it. Him.The thought coursed through her as the weight of the shrieker’s gaze bore a hole through her soul.
Matt nudged her arm again and she took his offering and joined him at the wall. Every step away from the monster made her feel better. Norah didn’t trust enough to completely turn her back on it, but she managed to keep most of her body turned away.
“We keep it,” Stryker said at last.
“What?”
“No way, why?”
“EonMed is going to want proof and the EPED is going to want that Wieraptor. We bring it for both corporations to study. It’s better than the alternative: sending more unassuming people to both of these worlds that we’re so clearly not ready to conquer. This is contained and the stats are consistent.”
“But what if it gets loose on Earth or the facility it will be transferred to?” Norah struggled out. “I wanted to bring water back to Earth, not a waterborne bacteria that needs water to survive.”
“Makes Earth a great place for it then.”
“And the people?”
“We both know it won’t be enough to sustain it. The dead on Axone still needed to be in water to survive.”
“Yeah, okay, until the bacteria gets into our water reserves,” she argued.
“It won’t, it can’t, at least not with the EPED. The facilities are separated from the metropolises of Earth and have state of the art countermeasures to keep anything and everything contained. I’m not the only Cyborg that works for them. There are several others that work within the facilities themselves, there are also androids, and so many physical and bureaucratic shields in place it’s a nightmare. The most dangerous acquisitions are also not kept on Earth.”
“Where are they kept?”
“Classified, babe, even for you. The EPED will listen to me when I say that the Wieraptor homeworld should be left alone for now but will EonMed listen to you about Axone? Even if I backed you up, I don’t work for them, we’re affiliated and have many of the same goals but our commonality ends there. The creature,” his hand waved at the enclosure, “will help you convince them.”
Norah glanced at the unshapely ball of hide, blood, and flesh before quickly looking away.
“Won’t the EPED want it?”
Stryker shrugged. “Leave that for others to settle. They didn’t send me for this so they don’t have a claim on it.”
Norah wiped her hands over her suit and sighed. She didn’t want to bring the thing back, didn’t like the history it represented. Images of her fellows rose up in her mind but she willed them away. She trusted Stryker.
It didn’t stop her from wanting to agree with Matt about jettisoning the beast.
But they’ll want to know what killed the team.Her mouth dried up.They’ll send me back. They’ll send others.Norah chewed on the inside of her cheek as another wave of mist covered the creature. She steeled her nerves and braved its eyes.
You’re contained, fucker,she said in her mind.We’ll find a way to cure your disease.
She didn’t want anyone else to go back to Axone, not if she could help it, but if another teamwassent she would insist on going with them. Even though she knew the dangers, the horrors, and storms that could tear apart the countryside, she would never let an innocent team of people go to Axone without her.
