Spy pushed her way inside the bakery; it opened with little more than a touch. Lights started to brighten inside. A dozen rats turned to stare at her.“Mehshh!”Heart pounding, she turned tail and shoved back into the hall, speeding into the dark.
Maul came around an intersecting hallway and together they raced along the corridor, looking for more stairs up, looking for high ground the way cats looked for tall trees, a way out. Spy was in hair-raised cat-terror mode. I tried to offer advice, but I couldn’t get through the fright in her brain to tell her to go down any stairs she found to get away.
The overlapping panic, mental impressions, and the shaky video footage were making me nauseous and dizzy. Spy’s brain was a wash of color, scent, and nightmare-like fear. I pulled back mentally and studied the 3D floor plan coming together on my helmet screen.
Eventually the cats’ terror was washed away by exhaustion, and they stopped together, huddled in a dark corner. They had outraced the rats. For now.
Maul pressed a pocket on Spy’s tac vest and used his teeth to pull out a container of water. Together they turned it top side up, and Maul pressed the small lever that opened it. They both drank until the liquid was gone.
Through the grasses came a whispering sound. Shushing, like wind across the face of the bunker, except the air was still. Assuming it was someone coming to check on the guard I had killed, I stepped behind the rock and the ATV. To one side I saw grass bending and waving, whispering soft threats, but I could see nothing.
The grasses pressed forward, falling flat, then another wave. A group of six rats, walking abreast, appeared. Behind them six more. And six more. They passed by me as if I wasn’t standing there. And disappeared. But I could hear them squealing and grunting only a few meters ahead. They were eating the brown-eyed guard.
I clenched my jaw and turned my attention to the cats.
Maul pawed the small water container down the hall and watched it bounce. Then he sprayed the wall beside them with his scent. Spy added hers. Maul chuffed-growled out a sound that I was sure meant,This place is ours.
Forcing my mind away from the rats, I watched the cats. “You’ve got this,” I murmured to Spy. “Slow down. See what’s on this level. And when you find stairs, go down, not up.”
Spy ignored me, licked her front paw to show me how calm and collected she was, and sauntered along the hallway.Crazy cat.
A few paces down was a blast door, similar in shape to the airlocks on space-worthy vessels. It was marked with the word WIMP / TS Clearance.
WIMP. Weakly Interactive Massive dark energy Particles.TS.Top secret?
My insides clenched before I could control the reaction.
Below the label were the wordsTier 5 Security Measures required to enter. Palm print and retina scans are compulsory.
According to the emerging map, this doorway led into a central three-story space that had no other doors. Someone had been trying to get into the room, demoing the security plate and the wall. The palm-and-retina scanner was in pieces on the floor, with a lot of other debris, including heavy-duty, honeycombed hemplaz carbon-fiber composite sheeting that hadn’t been dense enough to withstand what looked like an attack by a small rocket. Exposed behind the damage were walls built from ballistic armor, the kind on starship hulls. The blast door was undamaged.
This was the entrance to their power source. Or, if the rumors were true, a massive weapon. A planet killer.
“Bloody damn,” I whispered. “Mateo, you seeing what I’m seeing?”
“Affirmative. If Warhammer figures out how to get inside, she might get her hands on an Earth killer. And the presence of WIMP power means we can’t use the Simba’s city-killer to take the bunker down. It could detonate.”
Which would not only do irreparable harm to the planet, it would also attract the Bugs.
I said to Spy, “We have what we need. Retreat.”
“Hhhhah mmm,”Spy replied, and the two cats headed back down a set of stairs toward their air shaft, a stealthy trek by a different route across the underground compound. They passed offices, more barracks, and food stores that the rats hadn’t found yet.
They passed the bunker’s main entrance through a series of blast doors, and a loading bay and garage with dozens of ATV-like mini-tanks, a couple dozen civilian vehicles, and the stench of leaking batteries and diesel fuel.
It was getting close to morning, and the cats had a close call with two humans. They sped up their exfil to the escape air shaft.
Using the ropes, they made their way back up the shaft, pulling the ropes behind them. When they were both back at the surface, they dropped the ropes behind the tree, but left them tied, and followed their own scent trail through the grass. Spy stopped when she smelled the remains of the sentry and caught sight of the rats feasting. She hissed and marked the spot with her scent, claiming it.
I opened a hemplaz bucket of water, and though they gave me fierce stares, both cats jumped in, dunking themselves thoroughly to kill any of Clarisse’s nanobots they had picked up. Wet and stinking of cat, they then jumped into the small four-wheeler I was driving, and I could finally relax. To show my appreciation I helped them out of their soaked tac vests and rubbed them down with towels. As I worked I said, “You are amazing cats. The best hunter, fighter, infiltrator cats in the history of all cats.”
Spy purred, emitting a sense of satisfaction and pride. Maul lifted a leg to groom his privates, showing his mate that he had even more attributes than just being a successful hunter-fighter cat. Spy seemed overly interested in his display.
“Stop that,” I said. “Gross.”
Maul hacked with amusement.
I poured fresh water into plastic bowls, and opened two cans of super-expensive salmon. They chowed down, and I resisted petting them. When they wanted my attention, they would tell me. Otherwise, I was asking for claw and fang scars. They were not pets. They were equals. Or maybe they were in charge. Once I realized they were sentient and capable of group mental communication, I had never been completely certain of our hierarchy, and maybe it was best that I not find out. Ever.
