Chapter 8

He made the demand and she cowered.

"But why? I won't hurt you. I promise."

A chuckle rumbled forth. "I am not afraid of you harming me, little one. That is not my reason for taking you."

"You're going to use me as a hostage to escape?"

"I need no help escaping. Enough talking. We are wasting time, and the soldiers will be arriving." Actually, they should have already been there. It made no sense to his neural implant or his remaining human faculties why they didn't have a squad of soldiers stationed nearby, but for some reason, the humans preferred to rely on their security systems to keep him prisoner. Idiots. This was the third - and last - time he snapped the manacles they bound him with, their use of stronger and thicker alloys no hindrance to his highly adaptable nanobots.

Striding from the area of his incarceration, an unbreakable grip around her waist, Joe dragged Chloe along with him, her steps not so much reluctant as short compared to his longer stride.

"Where are you taking me?" she asked in a quavering voice still determined to question.

"Away from here."

That simple answer eased some of her tension. "But how? In case you hadn't noticed, we're buried several levels underground in a military installation with troops all around. Armed troops, I might add. How do you figure you'll get out of here alive?"

"You'll see," was his cryptic reply.

Reaching the guard's post, he slid behind the console and retrieved the weapons stashed underneath. Two measly laser pistols. Not exactly the most efficient of weapons, but he'd acquire more during his exit. Placing his free hand on the keyboard, he attempted to connect himself to the server, only to find it shutting down, the humans having finally gotten smart enough to realize no firewall could stop him from taking it over. He couldn't halt the server shutdown, but in the time remaining before full blackout, he managed to set off a few planted viruses. The chaos they would create could only help. Only one of his sub-routines didn't initiate, the one that was supposed to seal the levels from each other.

Annoyed at the snag, he mentally adapted his plan as he hoisted Chloe and draped her over his shoulder. Wrapping one of his arms around her legs as an anchor, he freed his hands. A gun in each fist, he left his prison, following the escape route he'd already meticulously planned.

Of course, when he initially plotted his path, he just had himself to worry about. Now he had Chloe too. Delicate, little Chloe who couldn't handle the damage done by bullets.

I guess I'd better make sure my aim isn't off then. As if his BCI would ever allow that to happen, he thought with something resembling humor.

To his surprise, Chloe didn't say or do anything as he jogged up the corridor, although she did let out a slight whimper when he fired and the human he hit let out a strangled scream before falling over.

And then he didn't really pay much attention, make that couldn't, as military personnel arrived in squads that required him to fire in rapid succession, incapacitating the humans before they could even think of shooting. He didn't manage to kill all the troops as quickly as he would have liked, however, and a few got off shots before dying. His neural net calculated the trajectories of those missiles, and those he couldn't avoid he took into himself, making sure to turn his body, thus angling Chloe away from the bullets. Not a grunt escaped him as he took the impacts, his nanobots going immediately to work repairing the tissue damage and absorbing what they could of the bullets before pushing the remnants back out.

A thunderous boom followed by a violent shaking of the walls and floor made him speed up his pace. His brothers had arrived as planned.

The lights shut down about ninety seconds after the initial sound of impact, more than thirteen point five seconds later than expected, something he'd tease Solus about later. The cyborg took his timeframes seriously. Joe briefly wondered as he jogged down the dark hall what had thrown his friend off his meticulous schedule. He ran faster as the distant sound of gunfire came to his auditory channels.

"Almost out of here," he announced.

However, Chloe didn't reply as he ran, her body jostling where she lay pinned over his shoulder. He'd expected more argument from her about his intent to abduct her. It would probably come later when the shock had a chance to wear off - and shrilly too if past experiences with humans held true.

With his enhanced eyesight, navigating the dark corridors proved simple, especially since his neural net knew the way. When he planned this infiltration months ago in an attempt to access information closer to the source of their creation, he tried to plan for all contingencies. He even allowed his cyborg brothers to play with his programming and hardware by increasing his wireless signal strength and giving his nanobots even more autonomy than usual.

It looked like they planned well, except for one crucial thing. He'd not found what they were looking for. But his was quest not a complete loss.

He might not have found the origins of the cyborg creation, but he'd discovered something, make that someone special, his little Chloe who somehow made him feel. And he wanted to explore that, dissect what it meant, how it worked. In order to do that though, he needed to escape.

Smoke and the burning stench of wires and plastic came to him from up ahead. Joe stopped his jog as something occurred to him. Chloe cannot inhale the fumes for long without damage. With nothing at hand, he tore at the fabric covering Chloe's legs, the ripping fabric making her rear up from his shoulder with a shocked, "What are you doing?"

He let her slide off his shoulder, steadying her with an arm around her waist. He placed the fabric against her face. "Cover your mouth. The air's bad up ahead."

She clutched the fabric with one hand, and, more surprisingly, grasped at him with the other. He guided her free hand into his, lacing their fingers together. It would make shooting with that side impossible, but he couldn't deny a small spurt of enjoyment that she clung to him. Besides, they were almost to their destination.

The acrid fog thickened. His optical senses adapted, changing their settings so they filtered the smog in front of him into heat signatures. Seeing nothing that indicated life, he nevertheless approached the rendezvous point slowly, his lungs filtering the tainted air.

The hand that slapped him across the back took him by surprise and he roared, his instincts kicking in and making him fire a shot before he realized it was simply Seth, his cyborg brother and part of the extraction mission.

"Whoa, Joe," his friend exclaimed, stepping from the murk. "Since when do you shoot the cavalry?"

"You surprised me," Joe grudgingly admitted.

Seth chuckled. "I never thought I'd see the day. I don't suppose it has to do with the little human at your side?"

Joe tucked Chloe closer to his side, and she went willingly even if her frame trembled.

"She's coming with me."

"Whatever you say, boss." The sound of stomping feet echoed from up the corridor. "What do you say we blow this joint, and I mean blow?" Seth grinned, his adaptation to human language and mannerisms uncanny at times.

"Lead the way."

Following his friend's frame through the thickening smoke, he made sure to keep his senses alert to possible incoming danger, all too aware of Chloe at his side. When she stumbled, it was a great excuse for him to scoop her up into his arms. Her wide eyes peered up at him, the rest of her face masked by the cloth she kept pressed against it.

Drawn into their depths, he didn't immediately react when the arriving troops, clad in gas masks, began firing. But he did when a pained gasp left her, and the impact of her wound transmitted to him. With a bellow of rage, Joe began to fire and kept firing even when the soldiers had stopped.

Seth shoved a harness at him. "Stop playing with the humans. They can't get any deader and we need to go. Solus says there are hundreds of heat signatures heading our way."

Joe growled. "I need to check her wound."

"Check it on board. We need to leave now before the soldiers arrive, or would you prefer she end up with a few more holes?"

"I'm fine," Chloe gasped from behind her makeshift mask.

Since logic appeared to have completely left him, Joe did as his friend suggested. He let Chloe stand as he quickly buckled himself into the harness. Secured, he took her back into his arms.

"Hold on tight," he ordered before the rope began to pull them up through the hole his brothers created. And back to freedom - which contained a much-needed shower and a really big bed.