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dochermes"Project Regulus II- Everybody Loves a Clone"
7/29/-7/30/1989
I.
Just before seven-thirty that evening, Jeremy Bane walked into the conference room at the KDF headquarters and saw his team was assembled and ready. The long oak table which took up much of that room had a dozen swivel chairs arranged along its length, five on each side and one at each end. He looked over the members available for this case. Cindy. Steve. Shiro. Len. Khang. A good assortment of powers and skills. Bane entered the room and said, "Hello, everyone, glad to see you're all on duty. Let me explain the situation."
Taking his place at the chairman's seat at the head of the table, the Dire Wolf continued, "I was contacted this morning by agents of Department 21 Black. That's the FBI section which handles crimes of a baffling or seemingly occult nature. They've gotten used to dumping these cases on us, but in an unofficial and off the books way. We're basically acting on our own responsibility with the authorities using us a freelance vigilantes."
Shiro Mitsuru made a disgusted noise. "Just once I would like the FBI or the NYPD or the Mandate to back us up! I don't expect praise but some appreciation would be nice." The Tiger Fury was wearing a plain white T-shirt with a sleeveless denim vest and the wiry muscles on his arms stood out vividly as he gestured. "We take all the risks doing their dirty work."
Bane allowed himself a faint sigh, rare for him. "I know. I feel the same, Shiro. But this is our duty as Tel Shai knights. We would be tracking down monsters and masterminds even if the authorities were actively trying to stop us. So. Two days ago, there was a massacre in New Jersey. Five men were murdered at the Stanmore Records Facility near Woodbridge. That's a place where the state keeps microfilm and paper documents. Some files were stolen, but nothing important. One guard, three record keepers and one janitor were all killed by two intruders."
"Well, that's odd," Steven Weaver said. The Black Angel had been on the top floor, helping Slade to do maintenance on the CORBY. He still had a oil-smeared tan jumpsuit on. Weaver was a black American with a thick mustache and an open, relaxed face. "I happen to know some military contractors keep records at Stanmore. Some realvaluable information on file there. Why assault the place and kill the staff but not take anything worth the risk?"
Jeremy Bane leaned forward. His pale grey eyes were always intense but now they seem especially bright. "My guess? It's a trick to lure us in. One of our enemies staged this so 21 Black would call us. Arem Kamende, Wu Lung, John Grim... hard to say which one."
"Sounds possible," Weaver admitted. "What else do we know?"
"The facility has a security tape they allowed 21 Black to copy, and I recorded it on my Link. The other camera was out of service at the time. Of course, I'm supposed to erase it within twenty-four hours. Here, let's get a look." Standing up, Bane went to turn off the overhead lights and clicked on a large video monitor built into one wall. The screen lit up and showed a logo RESTRICTED- CLASS A PERSONNEL ONLY, FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION, with a paragraph detailing the punishment that would befall any unauthorized people watching the tape.
They saw a warehouse, filmed from up by the ceiling. Rows of metal framework held cardboard boxes stacked neatly and labelled with prominents white numbers. A man in a white dress shirt and slacks was pushing a cart with two more boxes on it down between two rows of the shelving and he stopped to chat with an older man pushing a bucket with a mop in it. Both men gave a start and swung around at some noise. A thin dark-haired man in a black jumpsuit rushed at them so quickly his movements could barely be followed. He stabbed the janitor in the chest with a dagger, shoved him away, and then pounced on the other man. Faster than a big cat striking, the man in black swung the second victim around and slashed his throat open, then flung him aside and raced from the warehouse.
"Dang, that guy is nimble," Weaver said. "You think he's fast as you, captain?"
"Could be." Bane played the brief segment again. "Certainly faster than normal, even a Kumundu Master. There's an Alchemy drug called Velocitin, it accelerates a person but causes a lot of damaging side effects. The Mongoose team used it."
Leonard Slade stood up and walked over to the monitor. "We do not have a clear view of the attacker," he said. "Enchancement of such a crude image has its limits. Let me try facial recognition technique."
"Try what?" asked Cindy, tilting her head.
"A biometric program Humans do not have yet." Slade spoke as always in a calm voice just a bit more inflected than a monotone. "Our computer system finds the best image of the intruder's face and compares it to every face in the databanks. Right now, it is running through NYPD, FBI, CIA and Mandate files which we secretly have obtained access to." The Trom glanced over his shoulder at his teammates. His olive-skinned face was handsome in a bland generic sense to let him blend in almost anywhere. "In ten years, Humans are likely to develop facial recognition programs."
"Listen," Cindy said with barely concealed annoyance. "Are ALL you guys geniuses?"
"Yes."
"It was a rhetorical question!" the blonde telepath said. "I wasn't being literal."
"Irony, like humor, is difficult for me to appreciate," Slade answered mildly. "We now have the closest match. It is actually an assembly from the clearest aspects of various images." The monitor screen showed a split image of an enlarged face from the security tape alongside a clear ID photo. Still blurry and grainy, the security tape revealed a man with a narrow face, short black hair and eyes with light colored irises. The ID photo was identical, but it was that of Jeremy Bane.
"Whoa," Weaver said. "I assume you can explain where you were at that time, captain?"
"Very funny," muttered Bane. He went over to examine the frozen image at close range. "There's one explanation and I really don't like it. Shiro, you remember earlier we were talking about the mission last year when we infiltrated Project Regulus. You just read the file. What do you think?"
The Tiger Fury slapped one hand on the table. "I was just thinking about this! Eldritch said it took a few months to grow one of their replicants to adulthood and teach it basic skills. And you say that you, Chen and Larry were unconscious for fifteen to twenty minutes. He could take advantage of that."
"Oh my God," Cindy interrupted. "You think Eldritch took samples from you guys? He grew clones of you? That's disgusting!"
"Sure looks like it," said Bane grimly. "I had a truce with Eldritch that we would leave each other alone as long as he didn't start anything. Looks like that's over now."
For the first time, Khang spoke in a deep, resonant voice that seemed to come from all directions at once in an unsettling effect. The silver man was bundled in a topcoat, gloves, scarf, goggles and widebrimmed hat pulled low so that nothing of him showed. Now he raised a huge gloved fist. "Indeed! Karl Eldritch has escaped just retribution too many times now. Let us put an end to him, Jeremy. I myself will see that nothing remains of him to regenerate and plague us again."
The Dire Wolf glanced over his team. "Khang is right. Whatever it takes, whatever we have to do, we are going to end the menace of Karl Eldritch once and for all."
II.
An hour later, Cindy eased the big Buick Regal into the parking lot of the apartment complex off Richmond Street in Woodbridge NJ, and found a convenient spot. From long habit developed with the KDF, she backed into the slot so that she could pull out in a hurry if needed. There had been enough times that she had jumped behind the wheel with bullets zinging past her and every split-second had counted. The little blonde had changed into ankle boots, jeans and a long-sleeved pale blue shirt, with a denim jacket over it. It didn't show that she had a suit of the flexible Trom armor under her clothing, nor that one of the anesthetic dart guns was holstered in the small of her back where the jacket hid it. Cindy had pulled her dark blonde hair back into a thick ponytail, and with no make-up she still looked like a teenager.
In the passenger seat next to her, Shiro Mitsuru pouted with folded arms. "I know you Americans believe the stereotype, but honestly I am an excellent driver."
From the back seat, Steven Weaver chuckled, "Except for not using turn signals. Oh, and regarding lane changes as pleasant surprises for other drivers."
"You've never driven in Tokyo OR Hong Kong," the Tiger Fury grumbled. "Well, it doesn't matter now, I guess." He stared out the window at the front entrance to the WOODBRIDGE APARTMENTS, a neat new structure of tan brick with trim shrubbery alongside the walls and a little gazebo near the side doors. "Questioning the people at that storage facility sure didn't get us anywhere."
"No, it was a waste of time," Cindy agreed. "I probed their minds while they were talking and found nothing. If it wasn't for Trom tech, we'd still be clueless. I decided to run the image Len extracted from the video through all the car rentals and motels and apartments in the area. We got a match in six minutes. Two guys matching that picture rented a pad here three days ago."
Weaver opened the back door of the Buick and started to get out. He was wearing black slacks and a white dress shirt with the cuffs rolled up. "Hacking into motel and car rental records! I suppose you realize how many laws you're breaking doing that, Cin?"
"Sure. Jeremy and I drew up a list once. In a typical month, we commit enough felonies that we would never get out of prison IF we get caught. But look at the results." The blonde telepath grinned over her shoulder at Black Angel. "The guys we're looking for are in the ground floor rooms on that north corner over there. A third man is with them, but he doesn't look like our captain. He's a funny old duck with a big bald head."
Still sitting in the back with the door open and his feet outside on the asphalt, Weaver said, "Okay, let's go straighten them out then."
"Hold on," Cindy interrupted. "One of us stays out here to catch any who try to run for it. Steve, I'd say that should be you. You're the one who can fly, after all. Okay?"
"I suppose," the Black Angel said with a grudging smile. "I don't have my wings on, but I can still levitate. All right, you two go in there and stir things up."
Shiro got out of the car and impatiently waited as Cindy emerged from behind the wheel and checked her weaponry. He himself carried none of the KDF armor or gadgets. On the inside of his vest were stowed four shuriken for range, but mostly he relied on his own fighting skills. Shiro had raised on the run from country to country because his parents had stolen the treasury of the White Web. Those assassins had pursued the Mitsuru family for nineteen years and in those years, the young Toshiro had been trained by experts in every martial art available. It was really all he knew in life.
Cindy graced him with a smile as she came over to join him. Naturally she felt safer with the only living Tiger Fury by her side. "Okay, Shiro, let's check it out." She walked over to the side entrance, with its single concrete step and amber light over the door. Taking a small device from a pocket of her vest and pressed it against the lock. The Trom gadget extruded fine metal filaments into the mechanism where they reformed and stiffened, then rotated. The lock opened with a click, and Cindy return the device to her pocket as she pulled the door outward. The whole process was so quick that it would seem to an onlooker that she had simply used a key.
"Len gets on my nerves," she said, "But I gotta admit his gizmos are terrific." She entered the building with Shiro behind her. They walked down a softly-lit hallway with staggered doors on either side. At the end of that corridor was a door with a glass panel through which stairs could be seen and a final apartment door to their right with the number 118 in small bronze numerals.
Cindy paused before that door, lowering her head and narrowing her dark blue eyes as she reached out with her mind. Shiro waited with a noticeable lack of patience. After a full minute, she inhaled sharply and whispered to him, "All three in there. Strange minds. Very focussed but also very limited. Barely Human in fact." The telepath reached out to touch Shiro's arm. "They're dangerous."
"Hah!" he snorted. "They are going to find out what dangerous really IS." With that, he set his stance legs well apart and bent at the knees, then drove the heel of his palm directly above the door knob. The lock snapped cleanly and the door swung inward, with the Tiger Fury leaping within faster and more eagerly than a real tiger. To his complete surprise, he was stopped short as a hard fist exploded directly in the center of his face, knocking him back a step.
The next few seconds were a blur of deadly motion as the two opponents launched and deflected blows so rapidly that the impacts sounded like drumming. Shiro was facing a man about his own height and build, dressed in a black T-shirt and pants. The Antarian had short black hair and skin the dull grey of a corpse, but he moved faster than any normal Human. Even Shiro could not match that quickness.
For twenty seconds, the Tiger Fury gave ground, taking a few punches to the side of the head that he rolled with to lessen their sting. Putting up with that battering, he got the measure of his enemy. The clone was as fast as Jeremy Bane, perhaps a bit more, but he had evidently only a few weeks of training in how to fight. Shiro had a lifetime in everything from Aikido to Western pugilism to Greek Pankration. As the Antarian threw a punch with his right fist, Shiro caught that arm by the wrist and tugged it out straight to smash a hammer blow with his other hand right at the man's elbow. The Antarian screamed as his elbow bent the wrong way. In that instant, his attention faltered and he was lost. A single open-handed blow to the base of the neck dropped the clone senseless to the plush carpeting.
Stepping back, Shiro allowed himself a smirk for just a second, then whirled to face the Sirian. The little man in a green shirt and black pants regarded him with a horrified stare, eyes bulging out beneath the high forehead. There was no other Antarian in sight. The Tiger Fury lunged and grabbed the research clone by the shirtfront, effortlessly lifting the man off his feet. "Hey! Where's the other fighter?"
"He scrambled out that window," Cindy told him. "I couldn't get a clear shot. Never mind him now. Steve is outside. What we need are answers." She came over to lock eyes with the Sirian. "Hold him steady, Shiro."
After a few seconds, the blonde telepath got much closer to the Sirian, to make certain he got a good look at her. She was not above using her looks when necessary, and sure enough his resistance wavered as he saw her face and body almost touching him. She was through. Two minutes passed and Shiro felt the clone sag in his grip as the man passed out. The Tiger Fury lowered the big-headed Sirian to the carpet with surprising gentleness.
"Did you get what you wanted?" he asked the telepath.
Cindy mumbled, "Yeah," then snapped back to full awareness. "We have to act fast. I can tell Steve subdued the other Antarian out in the parking lot. Listen. We need to get these two in the Buick along with the one out there. Then I will drive them to the 21 Black offices to turn them over. I think you need to take a cab and meet us there, okay?" She raced over to the open window and stuck her head out. "All right. I'm distracting anyone passing by. I can make everyone look the other way and not see us but it take everything I have, understand!"
"Got it, Cindy. I'll hurry." The Tiger Fury grabbed the Sirian up off the carpet effortlessly and carried the big-headed man under one arm as he raced from the apartment. In less than a minute, he rushed back in and threw the unconscious Antarian over one shoulder and left the room again. Shiro was lean and wiry, but stronger than most bulky weightlifers. Only two minutes had passed before he came into the apartment and exhaled. "All set. All three of them are in the car out of sight and Steve is sitting behind the wheel. Steve is great. He used his levitation in reverse to pin the clone down with four hundred pounds of pressure."
Cindy Brunner let her shoulders drop. "Thank you, Shiro. Good work, buddy. My God, that's hard to do. Every car that went past, I had to make the driver not look this way. A woman walking on the sidewalk almost saw you but I forced her to stare straight ahead." She laughed in relief. "I can't do that too often."
The Tiger Fury watched her with new respect. "Sometimes I forget the things you can do. My life is punch and kick, not reading minds. Anyway, I'll flag down a taxi and meet you two at the FBI offices. What about the raid?"
"I'm going to call the other team now. They're already on their way in the CORBY and I'm sure they've gone Mach-plus. Eldritch is definitely still there at that facility, he has over a hundred clones active now. There's one more Antarian unaccounted for. I know Jeremy is going to attack as soon as I give him the news." She headed for the door. "But I'm not worried. You know, with Khang backing him up, I'd bet he could invade a whole country."
III.
The CORBY sped through the night over western Montana, its rotors disengaged and the impulse engines whipping it along at well over the speed of sound. From the ground, its passage was as silent as a faint breeze and the black copter had no external lights. The odds against it being spotted were minimal. In the pilot's seat, Leonard Slade flew with an ease that showed how rapidly his mind worked. The Trom was wearing his dark operations suit with the round disc of the gravity shield between his shoulder blade and his helmet plugged into the craft's systems. "Ready to slow approach," he announced.
Seated next to him, Jeremy Bane was gazing down through the windscreen. Its light enhancers showed the dry prairie a thousand feet below with sharp clarity. The Dire Wolf was frowning more than usual as the dark building which held Project Regulus came into view, standing by itself more than sixty miles from the nearest town. He had kept a suspicious eye on this mysterious facility for the past year, even hiring a local detective to watch for any of the clones showing up in public. But Eldritch had apparently kept his word and not done anything to provoke trouble, at least until the three Antareans had slaughtered everyone in the records storage building on the East Coast.
"Sensors indicate eleven Human-level life forms, active and alert," the Trom Monitor said. "No gralic force detected."
"Cindy said Eldritch had more than a hundred clones running around," Bane commented. "I think our worst appraisal is likely to have been right. Let's check it out."
As the CORBY's speed dropped, Slade cut back on the impulse engines and engaged the rotors. "I am going to land in the parking lot, as we agreed," he said. "We will enter the building from opposite sides. Are you ready?"
"I am." Bane lowered his helmet over his head, pressing the button to slide its visor down. He was wearing his field suit with the double layer of flexible armor and assorted weaponry. Instead of the usual anesthetic darts, his airgun was loaded with high-power resonance caps. "We'll keep in touch through our helmets but I don't think we'll find the battle we were led to expect."
The Trom Monitor put some inflection in his voice to sound natural. He had learned to mimic slight emotional response so his teammates were not uncomfortable around him. "Very well, captain. Touching down now." There was a barely perceptible tremor in the CORBY as its landing gear made contact with the tarmac not fifty years from the Project Regulus building. Only two vehicles were in sight, a black Jeep Cherokee and a red Ford pick-up truck, both parked near the front entrance.
As Bane hopped down to the lot and sealed the hatch behind him, he saw Leonard Slade step around from the other side of the CORBY. Without a word, the Trom pressed controls built into his gloves and lifted clear of the ground, rising up smoothly and gliding over the top of the building toward its other side. The Dire Wolf wished once again that Slade's Race would let the KDF use a few of those gravity shield discs but so far they had drawn a line at how much Trom technology would be made available. Walking toward the main entrance, still unlit on the outside with not a single sign or identifying mark to be seen, Bane suddenly slowed. If what he suspected was right, he was heading toward an unpleasant situation worse than the mere combat he thrived on. He approached the double metal doors and almost came to a stop with his hand on the holstered airgun.
With a buzz and a click, the doors opened from within and one of the Sirians emerged. The small fragile-looking man was wearing the bright Kelly green jumpsuit that Bane remembered from his previous visit here. The man had the same wizened little face under a high forehead on an oversized cranium with only a fringe of white hair. "You won't need that gun," the Sirian said in a barely audible tone.
"Show me what happened," Bane said, following the researcher into the building. Dim nightlights spaced out alone the walls provided just enough illumination to see. Bane thought once again what a nightmarish place this would be to work in. Dark, silent, nothing to break up the plain lines of walls and doors. It was worse than a prison, it was like being in a giant tomb. Another Sirian joined them and they walked without a word down the long corridor, turning right to face a door at which one of the Rigelites stood guard.
The Rigel class of clones had been created from a Belgian mercenary soldier, Bane had learned while investigating Project Regulus. Two inches over six feet in height and in perfect condition, the Rigelites had never smoked or drank or eaten junk food but had simply trained and prepared all their short lives. This guard stared at the Dire Wolf as if he remembered him. Perhaps they had met a year earlier, but Bane could not tell the Rigelites apart. He simply nodded as the guard opened the door to spill light out from the room into the murky hallway.
It was the first brightly-lit area Bane had seen in Project Regulus, a meeting room with two tables and assorted chairs, even a table with luncheon meats, rolls, fruit and a teapot. Three more of the Sirians were seated next to each other, evidently not doing anything but waiting passively. They had no papers in front of them, no magazines or newspapers. Bane had not seen a TV or radio in the entire facility. The lack of background noise was getting oppressive.
As the two Sirians joined their fellows at the table and the Rigelite automatically closed the door behind them, Bane looked over the five researchers. "Well," he said, "I have to ask. Where is everyone?"
"Gone," said a Sirian in a whisper. "The Master assembled the entire staff and vaporized all but a dozen with his white fire. Nothing is left of them."
"Nothing even to bury!" burst out another of the big-headed old men in an unexpected surge of emotion. "The Master did not explain, he NEVER explains. He told us to wait here for new duties."
"Why don't you make a run for it? There are vehicles outside." Bane glanced over at the Rigelite. "Get away while you can."
"Where can we go? We know no other life. We have no background, no identity. Oh, we have discussed this among ourselves. Only the first clones retain enough of the donor's memories to possibly survive in the outside world." The Sirian lowered his head and seemed about to weep. "We are little more than born slaves."
Bane was silent. He had expected something dreadful from Eldritch, but this was cold even for that heartless warlock. "I tell you what," he said after collecting his thoughts, "I'll offer you guys sanctuary. You'll be set up somewhere where you can live quietly, maybe like a retirement home somewhere. At least you'll be safe." Department 21 Black had 'farms' where long-term low-threat prisoners were treated decently.
The door opened behind him, but Bane did not start. He knew it had to be Slade. "Anything to report, Len?"
"No. Eldritch has taken the Zhunite artifacts with him. Most of this facility is empty aside from a few laboratories and basic living quarters. There are no other life forms here."
"You said the sensors detected eleven people, Len," Bane said. "I only count six in this room."
IV.
Parked on the sultry night streets of Manhattan, Karl Eldritch hung up his new cell phone. The mobile was the size of a brick, not much smaller than a military walky-talky but it worked well for his purposes. He had received the call from one of the Sirians at the Montana facility that a black helicopter had just touched down in the parking lot. Perfect, Eldritch thought, Bane had gone out there with his team to attack. The famous Dire Wolf had always shown the weakness of impatience, of never waiting or planning. Now Eldritch was using that weakness against him.
Sitting in his Lincoln Continental across the street, the warlock turned greedy hazel eyes toward the ten-story building. He had been to KDF headquarters once before, as part of an elaborate ruse that gone wrong and left him a brain-dead vegetable in sanitarium for more than a year. But, as always, he had come back. Eldritch believed he was immortal. Any harm done to him, no matter how severe, would be repaired eventually as his body assimilated matter or energy to restore itself.
Eldritch got out of his Lincoln, looming up over the car. Well over six feet tall, dressed in a tailored Navy blue suit with vest and light blue tie, he had a shaven bullet-shaped head and sullen features that now seemed almost joyful. The warlock crossed 38th Street and gloated about how, in only a few minutes, he would burn his way into the underground vault beneath the building. There he would would reclaim the artifacts of ancient Zhune which were rightfully his. With those devices in his ownership again, he could resume his long-delayed master plan... As he placed his foot on the bottommost step in front of the building, he hesitated. The door was ajar. Eldritch froze in place. It was so unlike the KDF, their security was always tight. That the door should have been left like this was disturbing.
For a few seconds, the giant warlock stood motionless, then moved forward again as greed outweight prudence. He swung the door outward and stepped into the tiny vestibule he remembered so well. The inner door stood wide open to reveal the softly-lit front hall. Eldritch took a deep breath and walked through that door to stand by the heavy coatrack as the door swung closed and locked itself behind him. The warlock swung around in fresh unease, then turned back toward his original objective just as the silver man stepped around the staircase into view.
Khang had discarded all concealing Human clothing here. He stood revealed as what seemed to be a highly burnished silver statue come to animate life. The smooth oval of the head had no ears, mouth, nose.. no features other than a pair of eye-slots that blazed as if lit from within. Over seven feet tall, wide enough to fill doorways, the powerfully built figure somehow gave the impression it was actually even larger than what could be seen. Even Karl Eldritch was intimidated.
"So Bane is not quite the fool I took him for," gasped the warlock. "I thought he would take his strongest ally with him to confront me."
"My captain knew that robbery was a mere trick," rumbled a deep voice that came from all directions. "Nothing of value had been stolen. The killings were merely to stir him to attack you and in so doing, leave the Zhune artifacts unguarded." Khang's voice turned into thunder. "Or so you hoped!"
Eldritch raised his beefy hands and a flicker of white light played over them. "I am no helpless lamb led to the slaughter, fool..."
Khang lowered his gleaming head and fixed those shining eyes on his enemy. "Your atomic fire is as nothing compared to the divine power of Halar-Koth. I serve the Halara who steers the stars. And I will not bandy words with you further." The silver man thrust out his open hand, palm out and the hallway was filled with intolerable force nothing flesh and blood could bear. It faded, revealing steam rising from the scorched carpet and drapery. Khang himself shimmered as heat rose from his metallic body into the chill air.
Nothing remained of Karl Eldritch. Khang lowered his hand and bowed it slightly in respect, then strode toward the phone on the wall near the door. In a second, he reached Bane's Link in Montana. "Captain, it is over," Khang declared. "Eldritch has been wiped from this existence, not even a dust speck remains. This time he will not return to trouble us further."
"At last!" came Bane's voice. "At long last. Good work, old friend. Len and I will be returning to base in a little while. Cindy has the other team at 21 Black's offices, they'll be coming home as well. We've earned our pay this time."
"I should not rejoice at the death of any man," Khang rumbled in a voice like a church organ. "Yet, in truth, if any man deserved it, Karl Eldritch did. I will await you here, captain."
"Great. See you soon." Bane broke off the connection.
For a long thoughtful moment, the silver giant regarded the spot where the warlock had last existed. There had not even been time for the man to scream. Not even ash remained. Then, Khang went to a bundle of clothing beside the steps. Heavy brogans, flannel pants, trenchcoat, gloves, scarf, hat, googles... he slowly began to conceal himself again. The servant of Halar-Koth felt a curious lack of triumph, almost a letdown. But he knew there would be other deadly enemies for him to face in the days ahead. His crusade was far from over.
V.
Stepping outside Project Regulus, Jeremy Bane unlatched the chinbar of his helmet and lifted it off his head. The night air felt good on his face, and he preferred to look up at the stars with his own eyes rather than through the enchanced functions of the visor. The call from Khang had settled things. He had been right, the whole business with that massacre at the records storage had been a trick to lure him out here. Eldritch had intended all along to raid KDF headquarters and recover the Zhune artifacts. But Bane had left Khang behind on guard and it had turned out to be the right decision.
The Dire Wolf took a deep breath of the chilly night air. He felt a heavy weight had been lifted. All these years of struggling with Karl Eldritch, as the warlock kept coming back no matter what seeming destruction had struck him, coming back again and again with a new and more horrifying scheme every time. If Khang was correct, they had seen the last of that madman and the world could breathe a little easier.
Suddenly Bane realized that the black Jeep Cherokee was gone. He spun and saw no tailights in any direction. Of course. That was where the unaccounted clones had gone. He started to go back inside to get Slade so they could search the area in the CORBY but stopped himself. Let the clones escape if they could. Maybe they could find some freedom that they had never been permitted before. The Dire Wolf searched the horizon but saw nothing and hoped he was doing the right thing. He had been trusting his instincts more and more recently.
Eleven miles away, the Jeep roared down the access road and swung onto I-409 without slowing. Rigel One was behind the wheel. He had retained enough memories of the original donor to be able to drive a car, but he was as awkward at it as if out of practice for years. The Rigelite sped along at eighty, with no clear idea where he was going or what difference it would make. He only knew an exhilaration he had never felt before.
Seated in the passenger seat, staring straight ahead, was Antares One. Except for the lifeless grey skin, he looked exactly like Jeremy Bane, down to the cold pale eyes. Antares One said quietly, "Turn south when you can, Rigel. The nearest town is Prescott. We can buy some food there."
"You seem to know what to do," Rigel answered. "What are we going to use for money?"
The fighter clone lifted a thick manila envelope bound with a cord. "I liberated this from the Master's private quarters after he slaughtered our brethren. Mostly fifties and twenties, I estimate perhaps fifteen thousand dollars. Enough for the moment. We will need regular clothing and facial make-up to help us blend in."
Rigel turned for a second. "Good thinking, Antares. And then what?"
"Who knows? We can do whatever we want. But then, what do we want? It's scary to be free after being born into slavery."
From the backseat, Deneb One leaned forward and put her head between the two clones up front. "We have useful skills. Sirius is a genius. You two are world class fighters. I have good looks and I learn quickly. Arcturus is strong. We will have no trouble surviving." Beside her, the hulking drone Arcturus One listened silently but he seldom spoke in any case.
The big-headed elderly Sirius One spoke for the first time since fleeing the Project Regulus facility. "I have a few ideas..." he said in a suddenly ominous tone.
12/9/2014
7/29/-7/30/1989
I.
Just before seven-thirty that evening, Jeremy Bane walked into the conference room at the KDF headquarters and saw his team was assembled and ready. The long oak table which took up much of that room had a dozen swivel chairs arranged along its length, five on each side and one at each end. He looked over the members available for this case. Cindy. Steve. Shiro. Len. Khang. A good assortment of powers and skills. Bane entered the room and said, "Hello, everyone, glad to see you're all on duty. Let me explain the situation."
Taking his place at the chairman's seat at the head of the table, the Dire Wolf continued, "I was contacted this morning by agents of Department 21 Black. That's the FBI section which handles crimes of a baffling or seemingly occult nature. They've gotten used to dumping these cases on us, but in an unofficial and off the books way. We're basically acting on our own responsibility with the authorities using us a freelance vigilantes."
Shiro Mitsuru made a disgusted noise. "Just once I would like the FBI or the NYPD or the Mandate to back us up! I don't expect praise but some appreciation would be nice." The Tiger Fury was wearing a plain white T-shirt with a sleeveless denim vest and the wiry muscles on his arms stood out vividly as he gestured. "We take all the risks doing their dirty work."
Bane allowed himself a faint sigh, rare for him. "I know. I feel the same, Shiro. But this is our duty as Tel Shai knights. We would be tracking down monsters and masterminds even if the authorities were actively trying to stop us. So. Two days ago, there was a massacre in New Jersey. Five men were murdered at the Stanmore Records Facility near Woodbridge. That's a place where the state keeps microfilm and paper documents. Some files were stolen, but nothing important. One guard, three record keepers and one janitor were all killed by two intruders."
"Well, that's odd," Steven Weaver said. The Black Angel had been on the top floor, helping Slade to do maintenance on the CORBY. He still had a oil-smeared tan jumpsuit on. Weaver was a black American with a thick mustache and an open, relaxed face. "I happen to know some military contractors keep records at Stanmore. Some realvaluable information on file there. Why assault the place and kill the staff but not take anything worth the risk?"
Jeremy Bane leaned forward. His pale grey eyes were always intense but now they seem especially bright. "My guess? It's a trick to lure us in. One of our enemies staged this so 21 Black would call us. Arem Kamende, Wu Lung, John Grim... hard to say which one."
"Sounds possible," Weaver admitted. "What else do we know?"
"The facility has a security tape they allowed 21 Black to copy, and I recorded it on my Link. The other camera was out of service at the time. Of course, I'm supposed to erase it within twenty-four hours. Here, let's get a look." Standing up, Bane went to turn off the overhead lights and clicked on a large video monitor built into one wall. The screen lit up and showed a logo RESTRICTED- CLASS A PERSONNEL ONLY, FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION, with a paragraph detailing the punishment that would befall any unauthorized people watching the tape.
They saw a warehouse, filmed from up by the ceiling. Rows of metal framework held cardboard boxes stacked neatly and labelled with prominents white numbers. A man in a white dress shirt and slacks was pushing a cart with two more boxes on it down between two rows of the shelving and he stopped to chat with an older man pushing a bucket with a mop in it. Both men gave a start and swung around at some noise. A thin dark-haired man in a black jumpsuit rushed at them so quickly his movements could barely be followed. He stabbed the janitor in the chest with a dagger, shoved him away, and then pounced on the other man. Faster than a big cat striking, the man in black swung the second victim around and slashed his throat open, then flung him aside and raced from the warehouse.
"Dang, that guy is nimble," Weaver said. "You think he's fast as you, captain?"
"Could be." Bane played the brief segment again. "Certainly faster than normal, even a Kumundu Master. There's an Alchemy drug called Velocitin, it accelerates a person but causes a lot of damaging side effects. The Mongoose team used it."
Leonard Slade stood up and walked over to the monitor. "We do not have a clear view of the attacker," he said. "Enchancement of such a crude image has its limits. Let me try facial recognition technique."
"Try what?" asked Cindy, tilting her head.
"A biometric program Humans do not have yet." Slade spoke as always in a calm voice just a bit more inflected than a monotone. "Our computer system finds the best image of the intruder's face and compares it to every face in the databanks. Right now, it is running through NYPD, FBI, CIA and Mandate files which we secretly have obtained access to." The Trom glanced over his shoulder at his teammates. His olive-skinned face was handsome in a bland generic sense to let him blend in almost anywhere. "In ten years, Humans are likely to develop facial recognition programs."
"Listen," Cindy said with barely concealed annoyance. "Are ALL you guys geniuses?"
"Yes."
"It was a rhetorical question!" the blonde telepath said. "I wasn't being literal."
"Irony, like humor, is difficult for me to appreciate," Slade answered mildly. "We now have the closest match. It is actually an assembly from the clearest aspects of various images." The monitor screen showed a split image of an enlarged face from the security tape alongside a clear ID photo. Still blurry and grainy, the security tape revealed a man with a narrow face, short black hair and eyes with light colored irises. The ID photo was identical, but it was that of Jeremy Bane.
"Whoa," Weaver said. "I assume you can explain where you were at that time, captain?"
"Very funny," muttered Bane. He went over to examine the frozen image at close range. "There's one explanation and I really don't like it. Shiro, you remember earlier we were talking about the mission last year when we infiltrated Project Regulus. You just read the file. What do you think?"
The Tiger Fury slapped one hand on the table. "I was just thinking about this! Eldritch said it took a few months to grow one of their replicants to adulthood and teach it basic skills. And you say that you, Chen and Larry were unconscious for fifteen to twenty minutes. He could take advantage of that."
"Oh my God," Cindy interrupted. "You think Eldritch took samples from you guys? He grew clones of you? That's disgusting!"
"Sure looks like it," said Bane grimly. "I had a truce with Eldritch that we would leave each other alone as long as he didn't start anything. Looks like that's over now."
For the first time, Khang spoke in a deep, resonant voice that seemed to come from all directions at once in an unsettling effect. The silver man was bundled in a topcoat, gloves, scarf, goggles and widebrimmed hat pulled low so that nothing of him showed. Now he raised a huge gloved fist. "Indeed! Karl Eldritch has escaped just retribution too many times now. Let us put an end to him, Jeremy. I myself will see that nothing remains of him to regenerate and plague us again."
The Dire Wolf glanced over his team. "Khang is right. Whatever it takes, whatever we have to do, we are going to end the menace of Karl Eldritch once and for all."
II.
An hour later, Cindy eased the big Buick Regal into the parking lot of the apartment complex off Richmond Street in Woodbridge NJ, and found a convenient spot. From long habit developed with the KDF, she backed into the slot so that she could pull out in a hurry if needed. There had been enough times that she had jumped behind the wheel with bullets zinging past her and every split-second had counted. The little blonde had changed into ankle boots, jeans and a long-sleeved pale blue shirt, with a denim jacket over it. It didn't show that she had a suit of the flexible Trom armor under her clothing, nor that one of the anesthetic dart guns was holstered in the small of her back where the jacket hid it. Cindy had pulled her dark blonde hair back into a thick ponytail, and with no make-up she still looked like a teenager.
In the passenger seat next to her, Shiro Mitsuru pouted with folded arms. "I know you Americans believe the stereotype, but honestly I am an excellent driver."
From the back seat, Steven Weaver chuckled, "Except for not using turn signals. Oh, and regarding lane changes as pleasant surprises for other drivers."
"You've never driven in Tokyo OR Hong Kong," the Tiger Fury grumbled. "Well, it doesn't matter now, I guess." He stared out the window at the front entrance to the WOODBRIDGE APARTMENTS, a neat new structure of tan brick with trim shrubbery alongside the walls and a little gazebo near the side doors. "Questioning the people at that storage facility sure didn't get us anywhere."
"No, it was a waste of time," Cindy agreed. "I probed their minds while they were talking and found nothing. If it wasn't for Trom tech, we'd still be clueless. I decided to run the image Len extracted from the video through all the car rentals and motels and apartments in the area. We got a match in six minutes. Two guys matching that picture rented a pad here three days ago."
Weaver opened the back door of the Buick and started to get out. He was wearing black slacks and a white dress shirt with the cuffs rolled up. "Hacking into motel and car rental records! I suppose you realize how many laws you're breaking doing that, Cin?"
"Sure. Jeremy and I drew up a list once. In a typical month, we commit enough felonies that we would never get out of prison IF we get caught. But look at the results." The blonde telepath grinned over her shoulder at Black Angel. "The guys we're looking for are in the ground floor rooms on that north corner over there. A third man is with them, but he doesn't look like our captain. He's a funny old duck with a big bald head."
Still sitting in the back with the door open and his feet outside on the asphalt, Weaver said, "Okay, let's go straighten them out then."
"Hold on," Cindy interrupted. "One of us stays out here to catch any who try to run for it. Steve, I'd say that should be you. You're the one who can fly, after all. Okay?"
"I suppose," the Black Angel said with a grudging smile. "I don't have my wings on, but I can still levitate. All right, you two go in there and stir things up."
Shiro got out of the car and impatiently waited as Cindy emerged from behind the wheel and checked her weaponry. He himself carried none of the KDF armor or gadgets. On the inside of his vest were stowed four shuriken for range, but mostly he relied on his own fighting skills. Shiro had raised on the run from country to country because his parents had stolen the treasury of the White Web. Those assassins had pursued the Mitsuru family for nineteen years and in those years, the young Toshiro had been trained by experts in every martial art available. It was really all he knew in life.
Cindy graced him with a smile as she came over to join him. Naturally she felt safer with the only living Tiger Fury by her side. "Okay, Shiro, let's check it out." She walked over to the side entrance, with its single concrete step and amber light over the door. Taking a small device from a pocket of her vest and pressed it against the lock. The Trom gadget extruded fine metal filaments into the mechanism where they reformed and stiffened, then rotated. The lock opened with a click, and Cindy return the device to her pocket as she pulled the door outward. The whole process was so quick that it would seem to an onlooker that she had simply used a key.
"Len gets on my nerves," she said, "But I gotta admit his gizmos are terrific." She entered the building with Shiro behind her. They walked down a softly-lit hallway with staggered doors on either side. At the end of that corridor was a door with a glass panel through which stairs could be seen and a final apartment door to their right with the number 118 in small bronze numerals.
Cindy paused before that door, lowering her head and narrowing her dark blue eyes as she reached out with her mind. Shiro waited with a noticeable lack of patience. After a full minute, she inhaled sharply and whispered to him, "All three in there. Strange minds. Very focussed but also very limited. Barely Human in fact." The telepath reached out to touch Shiro's arm. "They're dangerous."
"Hah!" he snorted. "They are going to find out what dangerous really IS." With that, he set his stance legs well apart and bent at the knees, then drove the heel of his palm directly above the door knob. The lock snapped cleanly and the door swung inward, with the Tiger Fury leaping within faster and more eagerly than a real tiger. To his complete surprise, he was stopped short as a hard fist exploded directly in the center of his face, knocking him back a step.
The next few seconds were a blur of deadly motion as the two opponents launched and deflected blows so rapidly that the impacts sounded like drumming. Shiro was facing a man about his own height and build, dressed in a black T-shirt and pants. The Antarian had short black hair and skin the dull grey of a corpse, but he moved faster than any normal Human. Even Shiro could not match that quickness.
For twenty seconds, the Tiger Fury gave ground, taking a few punches to the side of the head that he rolled with to lessen their sting. Putting up with that battering, he got the measure of his enemy. The clone was as fast as Jeremy Bane, perhaps a bit more, but he had evidently only a few weeks of training in how to fight. Shiro had a lifetime in everything from Aikido to Western pugilism to Greek Pankration. As the Antarian threw a punch with his right fist, Shiro caught that arm by the wrist and tugged it out straight to smash a hammer blow with his other hand right at the man's elbow. The Antarian screamed as his elbow bent the wrong way. In that instant, his attention faltered and he was lost. A single open-handed blow to the base of the neck dropped the clone senseless to the plush carpeting.
Stepping back, Shiro allowed himself a smirk for just a second, then whirled to face the Sirian. The little man in a green shirt and black pants regarded him with a horrified stare, eyes bulging out beneath the high forehead. There was no other Antarian in sight. The Tiger Fury lunged and grabbed the research clone by the shirtfront, effortlessly lifting the man off his feet. "Hey! Where's the other fighter?"
"He scrambled out that window," Cindy told him. "I couldn't get a clear shot. Never mind him now. Steve is outside. What we need are answers." She came over to lock eyes with the Sirian. "Hold him steady, Shiro."
After a few seconds, the blonde telepath got much closer to the Sirian, to make certain he got a good look at her. She was not above using her looks when necessary, and sure enough his resistance wavered as he saw her face and body almost touching him. She was through. Two minutes passed and Shiro felt the clone sag in his grip as the man passed out. The Tiger Fury lowered the big-headed Sirian to the carpet with surprising gentleness.
"Did you get what you wanted?" he asked the telepath.
Cindy mumbled, "Yeah," then snapped back to full awareness. "We have to act fast. I can tell Steve subdued the other Antarian out in the parking lot. Listen. We need to get these two in the Buick along with the one out there. Then I will drive them to the 21 Black offices to turn them over. I think you need to take a cab and meet us there, okay?" She raced over to the open window and stuck her head out. "All right. I'm distracting anyone passing by. I can make everyone look the other way and not see us but it take everything I have, understand!"
"Got it, Cindy. I'll hurry." The Tiger Fury grabbed the Sirian up off the carpet effortlessly and carried the big-headed man under one arm as he raced from the apartment. In less than a minute, he rushed back in and threw the unconscious Antarian over one shoulder and left the room again. Shiro was lean and wiry, but stronger than most bulky weightlifers. Only two minutes had passed before he came into the apartment and exhaled. "All set. All three of them are in the car out of sight and Steve is sitting behind the wheel. Steve is great. He used his levitation in reverse to pin the clone down with four hundred pounds of pressure."
Cindy Brunner let her shoulders drop. "Thank you, Shiro. Good work, buddy. My God, that's hard to do. Every car that went past, I had to make the driver not look this way. A woman walking on the sidewalk almost saw you but I forced her to stare straight ahead." She laughed in relief. "I can't do that too often."
The Tiger Fury watched her with new respect. "Sometimes I forget the things you can do. My life is punch and kick, not reading minds. Anyway, I'll flag down a taxi and meet you two at the FBI offices. What about the raid?"
"I'm going to call the other team now. They're already on their way in the CORBY and I'm sure they've gone Mach-plus. Eldritch is definitely still there at that facility, he has over a hundred clones active now. There's one more Antarian unaccounted for. I know Jeremy is going to attack as soon as I give him the news." She headed for the door. "But I'm not worried. You know, with Khang backing him up, I'd bet he could invade a whole country."
III.
The CORBY sped through the night over western Montana, its rotors disengaged and the impulse engines whipping it along at well over the speed of sound. From the ground, its passage was as silent as a faint breeze and the black copter had no external lights. The odds against it being spotted were minimal. In the pilot's seat, Leonard Slade flew with an ease that showed how rapidly his mind worked. The Trom was wearing his dark operations suit with the round disc of the gravity shield between his shoulder blade and his helmet plugged into the craft's systems. "Ready to slow approach," he announced.
Seated next to him, Jeremy Bane was gazing down through the windscreen. Its light enhancers showed the dry prairie a thousand feet below with sharp clarity. The Dire Wolf was frowning more than usual as the dark building which held Project Regulus came into view, standing by itself more than sixty miles from the nearest town. He had kept a suspicious eye on this mysterious facility for the past year, even hiring a local detective to watch for any of the clones showing up in public. But Eldritch had apparently kept his word and not done anything to provoke trouble, at least until the three Antareans had slaughtered everyone in the records storage building on the East Coast.
"Sensors indicate eleven Human-level life forms, active and alert," the Trom Monitor said. "No gralic force detected."
"Cindy said Eldritch had more than a hundred clones running around," Bane commented. "I think our worst appraisal is likely to have been right. Let's check it out."
As the CORBY's speed dropped, Slade cut back on the impulse engines and engaged the rotors. "I am going to land in the parking lot, as we agreed," he said. "We will enter the building from opposite sides. Are you ready?"
"I am." Bane lowered his helmet over his head, pressing the button to slide its visor down. He was wearing his field suit with the double layer of flexible armor and assorted weaponry. Instead of the usual anesthetic darts, his airgun was loaded with high-power resonance caps. "We'll keep in touch through our helmets but I don't think we'll find the battle we were led to expect."
The Trom Monitor put some inflection in his voice to sound natural. He had learned to mimic slight emotional response so his teammates were not uncomfortable around him. "Very well, captain. Touching down now." There was a barely perceptible tremor in the CORBY as its landing gear made contact with the tarmac not fifty years from the Project Regulus building. Only two vehicles were in sight, a black Jeep Cherokee and a red Ford pick-up truck, both parked near the front entrance.
As Bane hopped down to the lot and sealed the hatch behind him, he saw Leonard Slade step around from the other side of the CORBY. Without a word, the Trom pressed controls built into his gloves and lifted clear of the ground, rising up smoothly and gliding over the top of the building toward its other side. The Dire Wolf wished once again that Slade's Race would let the KDF use a few of those gravity shield discs but so far they had drawn a line at how much Trom technology would be made available. Walking toward the main entrance, still unlit on the outside with not a single sign or identifying mark to be seen, Bane suddenly slowed. If what he suspected was right, he was heading toward an unpleasant situation worse than the mere combat he thrived on. He approached the double metal doors and almost came to a stop with his hand on the holstered airgun.
With a buzz and a click, the doors opened from within and one of the Sirians emerged. The small fragile-looking man was wearing the bright Kelly green jumpsuit that Bane remembered from his previous visit here. The man had the same wizened little face under a high forehead on an oversized cranium with only a fringe of white hair. "You won't need that gun," the Sirian said in a barely audible tone.
"Show me what happened," Bane said, following the researcher into the building. Dim nightlights spaced out alone the walls provided just enough illumination to see. Bane thought once again what a nightmarish place this would be to work in. Dark, silent, nothing to break up the plain lines of walls and doors. It was worse than a prison, it was like being in a giant tomb. Another Sirian joined them and they walked without a word down the long corridor, turning right to face a door at which one of the Rigelites stood guard.
The Rigel class of clones had been created from a Belgian mercenary soldier, Bane had learned while investigating Project Regulus. Two inches over six feet in height and in perfect condition, the Rigelites had never smoked or drank or eaten junk food but had simply trained and prepared all their short lives. This guard stared at the Dire Wolf as if he remembered him. Perhaps they had met a year earlier, but Bane could not tell the Rigelites apart. He simply nodded as the guard opened the door to spill light out from the room into the murky hallway.
It was the first brightly-lit area Bane had seen in Project Regulus, a meeting room with two tables and assorted chairs, even a table with luncheon meats, rolls, fruit and a teapot. Three more of the Sirians were seated next to each other, evidently not doing anything but waiting passively. They had no papers in front of them, no magazines or newspapers. Bane had not seen a TV or radio in the entire facility. The lack of background noise was getting oppressive.
As the two Sirians joined their fellows at the table and the Rigelite automatically closed the door behind them, Bane looked over the five researchers. "Well," he said, "I have to ask. Where is everyone?"
"Gone," said a Sirian in a whisper. "The Master assembled the entire staff and vaporized all but a dozen with his white fire. Nothing is left of them."
"Nothing even to bury!" burst out another of the big-headed old men in an unexpected surge of emotion. "The Master did not explain, he NEVER explains. He told us to wait here for new duties."
"Why don't you make a run for it? There are vehicles outside." Bane glanced over at the Rigelite. "Get away while you can."
"Where can we go? We know no other life. We have no background, no identity. Oh, we have discussed this among ourselves. Only the first clones retain enough of the donor's memories to possibly survive in the outside world." The Sirian lowered his head and seemed about to weep. "We are little more than born slaves."
Bane was silent. He had expected something dreadful from Eldritch, but this was cold even for that heartless warlock. "I tell you what," he said after collecting his thoughts, "I'll offer you guys sanctuary. You'll be set up somewhere where you can live quietly, maybe like a retirement home somewhere. At least you'll be safe." Department 21 Black had 'farms' where long-term low-threat prisoners were treated decently.
The door opened behind him, but Bane did not start. He knew it had to be Slade. "Anything to report, Len?"
"No. Eldritch has taken the Zhunite artifacts with him. Most of this facility is empty aside from a few laboratories and basic living quarters. There are no other life forms here."
"You said the sensors detected eleven people, Len," Bane said. "I only count six in this room."
IV.
Parked on the sultry night streets of Manhattan, Karl Eldritch hung up his new cell phone. The mobile was the size of a brick, not much smaller than a military walky-talky but it worked well for his purposes. He had received the call from one of the Sirians at the Montana facility that a black helicopter had just touched down in the parking lot. Perfect, Eldritch thought, Bane had gone out there with his team to attack. The famous Dire Wolf had always shown the weakness of impatience, of never waiting or planning. Now Eldritch was using that weakness against him.
Sitting in his Lincoln Continental across the street, the warlock turned greedy hazel eyes toward the ten-story building. He had been to KDF headquarters once before, as part of an elaborate ruse that gone wrong and left him a brain-dead vegetable in sanitarium for more than a year. But, as always, he had come back. Eldritch believed he was immortal. Any harm done to him, no matter how severe, would be repaired eventually as his body assimilated matter or energy to restore itself.
Eldritch got out of his Lincoln, looming up over the car. Well over six feet tall, dressed in a tailored Navy blue suit with vest and light blue tie, he had a shaven bullet-shaped head and sullen features that now seemed almost joyful. The warlock crossed 38th Street and gloated about how, in only a few minutes, he would burn his way into the underground vault beneath the building. There he would would reclaim the artifacts of ancient Zhune which were rightfully his. With those devices in his ownership again, he could resume his long-delayed master plan... As he placed his foot on the bottommost step in front of the building, he hesitated. The door was ajar. Eldritch froze in place. It was so unlike the KDF, their security was always tight. That the door should have been left like this was disturbing.
For a few seconds, the giant warlock stood motionless, then moved forward again as greed outweight prudence. He swung the door outward and stepped into the tiny vestibule he remembered so well. The inner door stood wide open to reveal the softly-lit front hall. Eldritch took a deep breath and walked through that door to stand by the heavy coatrack as the door swung closed and locked itself behind him. The warlock swung around in fresh unease, then turned back toward his original objective just as the silver man stepped around the staircase into view.
Khang had discarded all concealing Human clothing here. He stood revealed as what seemed to be a highly burnished silver statue come to animate life. The smooth oval of the head had no ears, mouth, nose.. no features other than a pair of eye-slots that blazed as if lit from within. Over seven feet tall, wide enough to fill doorways, the powerfully built figure somehow gave the impression it was actually even larger than what could be seen. Even Karl Eldritch was intimidated.
"So Bane is not quite the fool I took him for," gasped the warlock. "I thought he would take his strongest ally with him to confront me."
"My captain knew that robbery was a mere trick," rumbled a deep voice that came from all directions. "Nothing of value had been stolen. The killings were merely to stir him to attack you and in so doing, leave the Zhune artifacts unguarded." Khang's voice turned into thunder. "Or so you hoped!"
Eldritch raised his beefy hands and a flicker of white light played over them. "I am no helpless lamb led to the slaughter, fool..."
Khang lowered his gleaming head and fixed those shining eyes on his enemy. "Your atomic fire is as nothing compared to the divine power of Halar-Koth. I serve the Halara who steers the stars. And I will not bandy words with you further." The silver man thrust out his open hand, palm out and the hallway was filled with intolerable force nothing flesh and blood could bear. It faded, revealing steam rising from the scorched carpet and drapery. Khang himself shimmered as heat rose from his metallic body into the chill air.
Nothing remained of Karl Eldritch. Khang lowered his hand and bowed it slightly in respect, then strode toward the phone on the wall near the door. In a second, he reached Bane's Link in Montana. "Captain, it is over," Khang declared. "Eldritch has been wiped from this existence, not even a dust speck remains. This time he will not return to trouble us further."
"At last!" came Bane's voice. "At long last. Good work, old friend. Len and I will be returning to base in a little while. Cindy has the other team at 21 Black's offices, they'll be coming home as well. We've earned our pay this time."
"I should not rejoice at the death of any man," Khang rumbled in a voice like a church organ. "Yet, in truth, if any man deserved it, Karl Eldritch did. I will await you here, captain."
"Great. See you soon." Bane broke off the connection.
For a long thoughtful moment, the silver giant regarded the spot where the warlock had last existed. There had not even been time for the man to scream. Not even ash remained. Then, Khang went to a bundle of clothing beside the steps. Heavy brogans, flannel pants, trenchcoat, gloves, scarf, hat, googles... he slowly began to conceal himself again. The servant of Halar-Koth felt a curious lack of triumph, almost a letdown. But he knew there would be other deadly enemies for him to face in the days ahead. His crusade was far from over.
V.
Stepping outside Project Regulus, Jeremy Bane unlatched the chinbar of his helmet and lifted it off his head. The night air felt good on his face, and he preferred to look up at the stars with his own eyes rather than through the enchanced functions of the visor. The call from Khang had settled things. He had been right, the whole business with that massacre at the records storage had been a trick to lure him out here. Eldritch had intended all along to raid KDF headquarters and recover the Zhune artifacts. But Bane had left Khang behind on guard and it had turned out to be the right decision.
The Dire Wolf took a deep breath of the chilly night air. He felt a heavy weight had been lifted. All these years of struggling with Karl Eldritch, as the warlock kept coming back no matter what seeming destruction had struck him, coming back again and again with a new and more horrifying scheme every time. If Khang was correct, they had seen the last of that madman and the world could breathe a little easier.
Suddenly Bane realized that the black Jeep Cherokee was gone. He spun and saw no tailights in any direction. Of course. That was where the unaccounted clones had gone. He started to go back inside to get Slade so they could search the area in the CORBY but stopped himself. Let the clones escape if they could. Maybe they could find some freedom that they had never been permitted before. The Dire Wolf searched the horizon but saw nothing and hoped he was doing the right thing. He had been trusting his instincts more and more recently.
Eleven miles away, the Jeep roared down the access road and swung onto I-409 without slowing. Rigel One was behind the wheel. He had retained enough memories of the original donor to be able to drive a car, but he was as awkward at it as if out of practice for years. The Rigelite sped along at eighty, with no clear idea where he was going or what difference it would make. He only knew an exhilaration he had never felt before.
Seated in the passenger seat, staring straight ahead, was Antares One. Except for the lifeless grey skin, he looked exactly like Jeremy Bane, down to the cold pale eyes. Antares One said quietly, "Turn south when you can, Rigel. The nearest town is Prescott. We can buy some food there."
"You seem to know what to do," Rigel answered. "What are we going to use for money?"
The fighter clone lifted a thick manila envelope bound with a cord. "I liberated this from the Master's private quarters after he slaughtered our brethren. Mostly fifties and twenties, I estimate perhaps fifteen thousand dollars. Enough for the moment. We will need regular clothing and facial make-up to help us blend in."
Rigel turned for a second. "Good thinking, Antares. And then what?"
"Who knows? We can do whatever we want. But then, what do we want? It's scary to be free after being born into slavery."
From the backseat, Deneb One leaned forward and put her head between the two clones up front. "We have useful skills. Sirius is a genius. You two are world class fighters. I have good looks and I learn quickly. Arcturus is strong. We will have no trouble surviving." Beside her, the hulking drone Arcturus One listened silently but he seldom spoke in any case.
The big-headed elderly Sirius One spoke for the first time since fleeing the Project Regulus facility. "I have a few ideas..." he said in a suddenly ominous tone.
12/9/2014
