Sarah knew she was doomed. But she wasn't going to give up yet. She kept running forward towards the safes. One cat was preparing to pounce on her from directly in front, and the other from behind.
As the cat to her front leapt at her, Sarah jumped as high as she could. The cat had aimed too low and its paws passed under Sarah's legs. She planted her hands on the bristly fur of the cat's forehead and pushed off hard, flipping herself over the cat.
She had expected to land on the left most of the bottom row of four vaults, but as she flipped through the air she realized the vault had been knocked out of the array by the cat's impact a few moments ago. Now the lockbox lay on the ground several feet from where it had once floated, its door busted open and its contents spilled out.
Sarah stretched her arms outwards and managed to grab onto the top edge of the safe in the column one over. She clawed at the slippery metal until she got enough purchase to pull herself onto it. Once on top of it, she had to stay crouched low, because the next row of vaults was only two feet above her.
Behind her, she heard the two cats hissing angrily. She spared a glance back and saw that they were entangled, as if they had collided into each other head on.
She used their momentary confusion to her advantage by rolling off the edge of the safe she was lying on. Just as she went over the side, she unbent her legs, launching herself up diagonally. She grabbed the edge of the box one column over and one row higher and scrabbled on top of it. Now she was kneeling two rows and one column away from safe D.
The cats untangled themselves and returned to the hunt. One of them skittered towards the wall and began climbing towards the ledge that ran around the room at the height of the third row of safes. The other cat immediately pounced towards her.
Gritting her teeth against her growing headache, Sarah rolled to her side and pushed with her legs, allowing her to grab onto a vault on the next higher row just as the cat impacted with the cube of steel she had just been kneeling on.
The force of the cat's impact drove the safe out of the floating array and into the far wall of the room. It made a resounding clang before falling to the ground, its door broken open by the collision. The cat hissed and fell lithely back to the ground.
Sarah vaulted up to the top row. She was one safe over from where she needed to be. Without nothing directly above her, she was finally able to stand up and move more quickly.
She froze when she realized that she was staring right into the eyes of the other cat. It had climbed to the ledge and was now preparing to pounce the short distance towards her.
Sarah knew she was running out of time. Her headache was becoming unbearable and she was beginning to feel nausea and vertigo as her TacWave overheated. Soon she would not be able to jump between columns and rows anymore.
She stepped to safe D and stood still on it. "Here, kitty," she whispered.
The cat bunched its haunches and leapt.
As the cat flew through the air, Sarah jumped up as high as she could and drew her legs into her chest. The cat's momentum carried it just below her, into lockbox D, which was knocked out of the array by the impact.
As Sarah fell towards the ground, the vault flew across the room and smashed into the wall. Its door broke open and it fell to the ground in pieces. It landed so that its ruptured door was facing upwards.
As Sarah passed the third row in the array she pushed off of a steel wall just hard enough, and just in the right direction, so that she fell perfectly inside the broken doorway of safe D.
She pulled out the bag hanging from her belt even before she landed. Her head was spinning and her vision was fading, but she pushed the pain away and jammed everything she could find into the bag.
Everything she put in the pouch would immediately go to the ranch's computers, where Colonel Jaeger was standing ready to decrypt it. Sarah knew the hour was late, yet she still hoped there would be enough time for Greg's Demon Squad to prevent Laura's attack from succeeding.
As she jammed the last bit of data from the broken safe into her bag, she heard a woman's voice call out "Where are you?"
She pulled herself up inside the safe, so that her waist was even with its edge and her head and upper body were exposed.
She saw Laura Mayer striding into the room in her signature combat gear. The woman wore a white linen dress over which she'd strapped a silver breastplate. She carried a round shield embossed with a circle and five-armed cross emblem on her left arm. Her right hand was empty, but there was a long sword hanging from her belt. Her dress and her scarlet red hair streamed behind her as if she were in a strong wind.
The two cats turned towards Laura, growled, and charged her. Sarah could not understand why Laura's own guardians would turn against her, but she was grateful for the respite.
Laura ignored the approaching felines, fixing her narrowed eyes on Sarah. "Sarah," she uttered through a grimace of rage as she stepped into the room. "I know it's you, Sarah."
The first of the two cats pounced, sending its quarter-ton of sinew and muscle hurtling towards Laura's willowy form.
Without sparing it a glance, Laura backhanded the cat with her free hand. The cat shrieked as it was knocked backwards across the room. When it rolled into an upright position, Sarah saw that one of its long fangs was broken off at the midpoint.
"Do you think you can defeat me with these kittens, you nat bitch!" screamed Laura, taking a long stride forward.
Sarah gritted her teeth against the throbbing pain in her head and used her shaking limbs to start climbing out of the safe.
The second cat pounced at Laura. She ignored the beast as it rapidly closed the distance with her, until the last moment. She turned her face into the oncoming feline and head butted it right in the nose. The animal fell backwards and scampered into a corner.
"Sarah!"
By now the first cat had recovered and was again charging at Laura.
Laura let out a huff of impatience and the wind that was already swirling around her hair and dress magnified. Sarah felt the safe she was still half inside begin to move across the floor, emitting a high pitched scraping noise as it rubbed against the rough stone tiles. She rolled out of the safe and onto the ground just as it became airborne.
She looked around the room and saw that all of the safes - the ones that were still in the floating array and the ones that had been knocked to the ground by the cats - were trembling and moving. And then they were off, hurtling around the room as if caught in a tornado.
As the first cat leapt towards Laura, it was intercepted by one of the flying metal cubes. The force of the impact was enough to slam the lioness against the stone wall of the room, which trembled and cracked. The cat roared in pain or fury, but before could regain its feet, it was hit by another vault, and then another and another.
Sarah crawled along the floor towards a corner of the room, where at least she would be partially protected by the walls of the room. When she reached the wall, she turned back to see the second cat being battered by a barrage of safes. The metal vaults bounced off it without halting its charge toward Laura.
It reared up on its hind legs as if it were a bear or a horse and loomed over Laura, ready to strike.
A final safe smashed into its head with such force that bone and muscle disintegrated, leaving behind a cloud of red mist. Suddenly, the air in the room became deathly still. The blood-streaked safe bounced across the room until it finally settled against the wall near Sarah.
Laura was still walking toward Sarah. "Do you think I would allow a human such as you to interfere with my great destiny?" She drew her longsword and dragged its point across the stone floor, leaving a trail of sparks behind her.
Sarah was fighting her way to her feet, determined to fight the woman she hated. Her TacWave was too overheated to help her create any form of weapon. It didn't matter. She would fight Laura with her bare hands if she had to. As she used the wall to help pull herself up, her eyes fell on a broken fragment of one of the cats' fangs. She bent down and seized it in her hand. It was long enough that she could hold it in her fist and have the sharp point protrude three inches from between her index finger and thumb. It was no sword, but it was something.
"Don't you know I'm here to save you all?" shrieked Laura, accelerating as she closed the distance. The shower of sparks created by her sword cast flickering shadows against the walls of the room.
Sarah's field of vision was fading, but she could see that Laura's armor left her neck exposed. She took an unsteady step forward, holding the tooth out in front of her.
As Laura closed the last few feet, she let out a roar of rage and raised her sword for the attack. "Sarah!"
Sarah leapt towards Laura. "Come here, you bitch!"
***
As Reverend Cruz walked out of her office towards the landing chopper, she felt a hand pulling at her jacket.
"Reverend, there's a call you should take," yelled the young aide named John, his voice barely audible over the rotor downdraft.
"Can't you patch it through to the chopper?"
"Ms. Verde says you should take this one on the landline. More secure!"
Cruz grimaced. She didn't want to hold up the trip to San Antonio. "Can't it wait?"
"Not this one." John looked apologetic even as he shook his head.
Ricardo put his hand on Cruz's shoulder. "John and I will make sure we've loaded everything we need on the chopper. Take the call. Everything that happens is part of God's plan."
"Thanks Ricky. I guess Rosa wouldn't have asked me to delay the flight unless the call is truly urgent."
She blew a kiss to her husband through her window as he ran across the now deserted playground towards the helicopter.
Then she turned and stepped back behind her desk. The items on its beaten surface trembled with the muted beat of the chopper's rotors. Through her office window, past the playground, she could see the crew chief conversing with Ricky.
There was a light blinking on the secure landline holophone Rosa had ordered installed in the office. Cruz activated the call and a holographic image of Rosa sprang to life in front of her.
"Forgive the intrusion, Reverend, but a defector called."
"A defector? Rosa, I can't grant interviews to every defector who comes along, and certainly not on their schedules," protested Cruz.
"He's very highly placed in Federal intelligence. Knows something about the Aeons. And he said this talk happens now or never. Won't give his name, of course."
Outside, the chopper's rotors powered down so Ricky and John could load boxes its passenger bay without their contents being disturbed by the downdraft.
Cruz stretched her back and sighed. She wasn't sure the interruption was justified. Nevertheless, it looked like she had a few minutes to spare. "Fine, put him on."
"It's scrambled, voice only. He thought the call would be more secure this way," said Rosa's holograph before winking out of existence.
"This is Reverend Cruz. What are you offering me?"
"Reverend, let me ask you," the voice on the other end responded without missing a beat. It sounded strangely mechanical. Cruz assumed this was an artifact of the scrambling process. "Do you really believe the MindWave is the mark of Satan?"
"That's what I've said in my sermons."
"I've watched your sermons. But do you believe it?"
Cruz paused. Her eyes flitted to the painting of Moses. Did he always know what the Lord wanted of him?
The voice filled the silence. "I knew you were pragmatic, Reverend. You understand the MindWave is merely a tool. It can be used for good or evil."
"Keep talking."
"I can bring Aeons to your side, if you can assure me you will use the MindWaves for good."
"How can you bring Aeons to me? Tell me who you are," Cruz demanded. Her guard was up; the call could be fake. Maybe Laura Mayer or an NSA agent was on the other end of the voice scrambler.
"You can call me Kingfisher for now."
Cruz heard the chopper's rotors starting up again. She wanted to get this call over with. "Not your name. Tell me who you work for and how you can possibly do what you're offering."
"The only information that comes free is my offer, Reverend. The rest, you have to earn."
Before Cruz could respond, she found herself flinching away from a sudden bright flash. A fraction of a second later, a sharp, reverberating boom filled the room, shaking objects off of her desk.
Cruz turned to her office window in time to see an intense orange glow. The orange was split in half by a wildly spinning rotor blade that was coming directly at her at incredible speed. She stood rooted to the floor of her office as the long metal shaft slammed through the window, shattering it and taking most of the wall with it. The rotor continued forward and sliced through her desk half a foot away from her.
She stood there dumbly, trying to make sense of what had happened. And then she realized she was still alive but Ricky-Ricky had been in the chopper and the chopper had exploded.
She ran through the burning embers and scattering documents to the open wall where her window once had been, and felt a draft of hot air blowing into her face. The burning wreckage of the helicopter lay right below her window, where the playground had been.
"Ricky!" she screamed. She wanted to jump down and look for him, to find him, but a blast of hot flame forced her back into the room.
She felt her legs weakening and she sank to the ground of her office. She raised her tear-filled eyes from the orange flames below to the cold, dark sky above. She wanted to curse God, she wanted to deny His existence, and she wanted to be in His warm embrace.
She raised her hands towards Him, and she realized she would never again have an Aaron or a Hur to support her tired arms. She screamed a sound that was not any word.
Everything that happens is part of God's plan. Those had been Ricky's last words to her.
The Lord had taken him, yet spared her so that she could carry out His will.
But if so, what was His will? Why hadn't He told her?
As she leaned forward to cry, a singed piece of paper, one of many that had been blown into the air by the force of the explosion, drifted down and landed on her knees. Even through her tears, she could read its boldfaced title.
Declaration of Independence.
***
Sarah screamed in rage as she brought the tooth upwards towards Laura's throat.
Then Laura was gone. Someone was holding her shoulders and cradling her head.
"Sarah! Sarah are you all right? Dr. Lee get in here!"
Sarah opened her eyes and blinked several times to get them to focus. It was Michael, leaning over her, looking terrified. One of his hands grasped her network cable. He must have pulled it out to manually disconnect her from the ether.
She winced against her terrible headache and managed to croak out some words to calm him down. "Relax, you dork. We can't be hurt in the ether. And I was about to kick Laura's ass."
"You're hurt Sarah," he said, then turned to look over his shoulder at the doorway. "Dr. Lee, hurry!"
Sarah felt something warm dripping down her upper lip and curled her mouth in disgust. Had Michael really drooled on her in his panic?
She raised a weak hand to wipe her face and it came away slick with red blood. Shocked, she stared down and saw that there were more bloodspots on the front of her shirt.
Dr. Lee ran into the room with a medical pouch in her hands. "Michael get out of the way!"
"How can I be bleeding?" asked Sarah, fighting to keep her eyes open despite her migraine. "We can't be hurt in the ether. Michael was just eaten by a cat and he's fine."
"You overheated your TacWave," explained Dr. Lee as she pulled a small scanner out of her bag and waved it around Sarah's head. "Lean back and let me check where the bleeding's coming from."
Sarah felt a welt of fear rising in her gut. She knew she'd been pushing the limit but she didn't think she'd be bleeding profusely. Her eyes locked on Michael's. He was standing right behind Dr. Lee, wringing his hands and looking for a way to be helpful.
"Why did you stay in there after you got the information?" he asked.
"I told you. I was going to kick Laura's ass."
"What good would that do? You just said yourself that no one can be hurt in the ether."
"I would have shown her she's no goddess. And I would have felt good." Sarah didn't want to admit it to Michael, but she knew she'd been foolhardy to stay longer than necessary with her TacWave overheating. And now, she might pay a steep price for her bad decision.
Finally, the scanner beeped and Dr. Lee looked at the results. She let out a sigh of relief. "You ruptured a synaptic vein. You're going to be fine. Don't push yourself so hard again, or you might not be so lucky."
Michael crowded forward and leaned over her and asked tenderly "Are you all right?" Then he kissed her softly on her forehead.
Sarah was struggling to decide whether to protest when Dr. Lee jabbed something in her arm and everything faded away.
***
Nick tried to move but realized he was held by restraints in an uncomfortable sitting position. He must have fallen asleep. Maybe Laura had given him more drugs. He shook his head and blinked his eyes open against the strong lights.
As soon as his eyes were focused he screamed.
His arms were gone, cut off at the elbows. A series of straps and braces held the stubs of his arms motionless against a reflective wall that reflected his terrified features. "Laura! Laura, what did you do?" he screamed.
There was no response.
As he struggled for control of his frantic breathing he noticed that the reflective surface in front of him looked like the plastic walls of the vats at a Langar Foods factory. What the hell was it doing here?
He calmed himself down enough to realize that the plastic was transparent. He peered into the translucent fluid within the vat. He saw the vague shapes of half-formed bones, with muscles growing around them. What was this place?
"Nick," Laura said in an urgent whisper, running up from behind and placing a steady hand on his shaking shoulder. "Screaming within earshot of your acolytes is not beneficial to your reputation as a divine being."
"What the hell did you do to me?" he struggled to turn around far enough to see her, yet could not. "Where are my arms?"
"Your arms will be ready soon," she said, flashing a confident smile at him in the vat's reflective surface. "Your new arms. I already discarded the old ones."
"Discarded? You mean-"
"Yes, you'll have a new set of arms by late tomorrow night. In the meantime, I'll tell you about your new home. The divine residence is just about ready for you to move in."
"This is the Calvert Cliffs haven?" He finally remembered he could use his MindWave to release calming hormones into his blood. As his mind cleared, he looked around as best he
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