The Weapon (The Hourglass Series Book 2) (9 page)

“The
berserker drug!” said Sarah, all the breath knocked out of her. “Dylan’s using
the berserker drug on them!” She felt Boulder push up against her as he tried
to see what was going on as well.

“The
bastard,” he growled, his voice low.
The berserker chemical was invented to make a super soldier. It would give them
determination, strength many times amplified, and rage to put it all to good
use. A berserker user had no conscious. They would shoot, and when their
bullets ran out, they would stab, gouge, throttle, punch and bite everyone and
anything until dead. Innocent bystanders weren’t spared. There were eyewitness
reports of people on the berserker drug continuing to run forward with several
bullets in their body. However it also destroyed the user. Many couldn’t handle
the effects, most dying of heart or lung problems while using it, if they survived
the enemy fire. Those rare few who made it out alive were usually driven mad
after they came to and realised the death and destruction they had caused. Bettina
had followed Gillie over the stall, screaming her lungs off. Sarah saw a plume
of blood explode from her leg but she kept on running, like she didn’t even
notice it. Then she was out of sight. Hutch was pointing his handgun at Dylan,
keeping him at bay, having finally realised what was going on.

“What
are you doing?” He yelled.

“We’re
all going to die, Hutch!” yelled Dylan, his voice crazed. “We can’t let them
take us! We go out fighting!”

“Not
like that!” replied Hutch, appalled. “Please, Dylan…”

“We’ll
take as many of them with us as we can,” persuaded Dylan.

“I’ll
die as myself, you bastard,” replied Hutch.

Dylan
sneered at him. “Losers,” he hissed. “What’re you going to do, shoot me?”

Hutch
kept the gun steady, but didn’t reply.

“Yeah,”
scoffed Dylan, “I didn’t think so.”

He
moved forward with the syringe held ready. Hutch knocked it out of his hand, using
his handgun as a bat. Dylan backhanded Hutch across the face, knocking him off
balance. Hutch’s hand went out to steady himself and the gun slid from his
grip, sliding out into the open. Desperately, Hutch dived for the fallen
syringe as Dylan pulled out his own handgun, the fight too close-quarters to
use their rifles. Dylan brought the gun up at the same time Hutch swivelled and
planted the syringe deep into Dylan’s leg. Dylan froze, and then let out a
roar. He picked up his rifle and used the butt to smash Hutch in the head,
knocking him out, before jumping up and going after Gillie and Bettina.

Hutch
wasn’t moving. A small pool of blood was seeping out of his head.

“We
can’t leave him like that,” said Sarah.

“Sarah,”
warned Boulder, but she wasn’t listening.

“Look
after Finn,” she told him. Sarah poked her arm around the edge of the car and
fired off and few shots and then, before she could think about what she was
doing, she ran, crouched down low. Behind her she heard Boulder curse and then
a few shots of his own rang out, providing, she hoped, cover for her to make it
to the stall unharmed. She made it half way there and then stumbled and landed
on one of her knees, hard. She swore but kept on moving, scrambling on all
fours for a few paces before finally diving behind the car sheltering Hutch.
She scuttled across the ground until she was next to him. His face was pale,
but he was breathing. There was a gash on his head and a large, bruised egg was
forming. She only hoped his skull wasn’t broken beneath it.

“Hutch,”
she blurted, “Hutch, wake up!” She slapped him gently on the cheeks. Hutch’s
eyelids fluttered a little. She took that as a promising sign. “Hutch,” she
called again, only this time louder. No response. She frowned and then
remembered what they had taught her in one of the first aid courses about
getting someone to respond. She reached over to his shoulder, where the muscle
joined the neck, and squeezed hard on his trapezius muscle. This time Hutch
groaned, and his eyes fluttered open.

“About
time,” said Sarah. “Hutch, you’ve got to get with it. We’re going to have to
run soon and you’re too big even for Boulder to carry.”

“Where
are we going to run to, Sarah?” asked Hutch, sounding defeated. “Once the enemy
catches up from behind, we’re boxed in.”

Sarah
opened her mouth to say something but then shut it again. She didn’t have an
answer for him. She wished she did, but there was nothing. It was then that she
realised that the shooting had stopped. Sure, she could hear the sounds of fighting
off in the distance, but nothing close to home.

A
voice shouted out to them across the void.

“You’re
surrounded!” yelled a man. “Look behind you!”

Sarah
looked behind them. A group of soldiers, rifles raised, were twenty metres off.
They weren’t from the Covenant.

“Drop
your weapons!” called out the man again.
Sarah glanced over at Boulder. Boulder shrugged and dropped his weapon. He was
right. They didn’t have a choice. Sarah dropped her rifle as well, kicking
Hutch’s away from him for him.

“Stand
up slowly! Hands over your head!”

Sarah
tried to get Hutch up but he couldn’t coordinate his legs, and he was too heavy
for her to support by herself.

“Hurry
up!” the man chided.

She
stood up by herself, slowly, hands raised over her head. She had never felt
more exposed. Boulder and Finn had done the same, Finn leaning against the side
of the overturned car for support. He could only just raise his injured arm up.

“Get
the other one up!” called the voice. He must be in contact with his fellows
behind them to have known that there were four of them, because she still
couldn’t see him.

“I
can’t!” yelled back Sarah. “He’s hit his head and he’s too heavy.”

There
was a pause, and then eight men and women rounded a building corner, weapons
raised. Sarah took an involuntary step backwards. The group came to within five
metres of them and then the man who had been doing all the talking stopped. He
sent four of his soldiers towards them. Two for Boulder and Finn, two for her
and Hutch. They stripped Boulder of his knife and prodded both of the boys
forward with their rifle ends. Sarah got frisked, coming back as empty. Hutch
received the same treatment on the ground. The guard who had frisked her called
for one of the other men to help him lift Hutch. The man hurried over and they
both hefted him, a man each under Hutch’s underarms. The speaker frowned at
Hutch as they approached.

“Get
him to the medics. The others can go with the rest.”

Sarah
opened her mouth to ask them to take Finn as well but both Finn and Boulder
were looking at her, shaking their heads barely perceptibly. She shut her mouth
without saying anything, confused. She hoped they could get help for him later.
They were hustled away, a large number of enemy soldiers flanking them on both
sides. They passed a number of bodies lying on the road as they walked. Sarah
tried not to look at them. She was afraid she would see Gillie or Bettina. She
didn’t think that she could take seeing their bodies. She didn’t want to
know
.
While she knew, deep in her heart, that they were dead, she also wanted to
believe in the small possibility that the beserker drug made them scale a
building where they would be able to wait until the drug wore off in relative
safety. The bodies would prove that to be a lie, and she couldn’t have that.
They walked for about twenty minutes until they came to a large courtyard,
where about fifteen other prisoners were already seated on the grass. They were
stripped of their armour before joining the others. A few of the other
prisoners looked up as they joined them, but only briefly, and nobody said
anything. A number of them were nursing minor injuries. There was an air of
expectant unease in the group, as they all waited to find out what was going to
happen to them. Every one of them had just experienced the worst forty minutes
of their lives, and every one of them knew it still might get worse. It was
almost incomprehensible.

Sarah
turned her attention to Finn’s shoulder. The bandage was soaked through with
blood.

“Finn,”
she said, keeping her voice low, “we need to get you to the medics.”

“No,”
replied both boys simultaneously.

She
stared at them, incredulous. “Look at your shoulder!” she hissed. “That needs
help.”

“Then
you help it,” said Finn. “I’m not leaving you.”

“And,
you know,” added in Boulder sarcastically, “there’s the bit about getting
experimented on by the good doctors.”

“I
don’t think…” began Sarah, but she was cut off by Boulder.
“Oh really? Remember the last doctor we knew?” Sarah did. He was the doctor
aboard the prison ship, the one who had signed them all off to act as guinea
pigs for the Hourglass Group.

“Oh.
Right.”

“I’m
not going anywhere,” repeated Finn.

Sarah
nodded, but she bit her lip, worried. He was still extremely pale. He had lost
a lot of blood.

The
time dragged on, the anxious atmosphere of the group getting to Sarah. She kept
on thinking about Jaz, Gillie and Bettina. It wasn’t fair. They didn’t ask for
this. They didn’t ask for any of it. They were all just trying to do the best
they could, and they were destroyed. They were her friends. And now they were
dead. She buried her head in her arms so that no one would know she was crying.
She was already in a weak situation. She didn’t need to look weaker.

***

The
officer who Sarah and Finn had first met on arrival at the military training
facility, who Sarah had mentally labelled “Crewcut”, was sitting at his desk
reading the reports of the nearby action he had lost so many of his recruits
to. He was reading through the files dismally when he stumbled across a brief
note that said Team 32 hadn’t reported back for duty and were presumed dead. He
closed his eyes. They were a young team. Some of them had the potential to be
good soldiers. Such a waste so early on. His thoughts then leapt to the girl
and boy who had arrived only a few weeks prior. What were their names again?
And that girl hadn’t registered in the system. That had been strange. He had
been meaning to chase that up. Out of a morbid curiosity he dug up her file and
looked through it. There was a small amount of meaningless information there
and an ID photo. He scanned the document. A single line caught his eye.

‘Identifying
features: scar left wrist – barcode. Scar right shoulder - Hourglass symbol.’

He
stared at it.

“No,”
he whispered, his voice croaky. “Her? It was
her?
” He searched
desperately through his files again and re-read the small paragraph about Team
32.
Presumed dead
. Shit. He rolled his fingers along the edge of the
desk and then paused. Presumed dead was not yet confirmed dead. He would put
out a bounty on her. If she survived, he would find her. It was worth risking.
She might know about the weapon. She could win the war for him.

It
wasn’t long before they were moved onwards. They were marched towards a number of
trucks, and the thirty or so of them were piled into two. If Sarah didn’t have
a past experience of hiding inside a bench on a boat for three hours, she would
have felt claustrophobic. Finally, after an hour or so of driving, they were
let out into a military compound. Their guards ushered them forward. Finn was
looking drawn and exhausted now, and both Sarah and Boulder were keeping him
propped up. About five metres out of the van Finn stumbled. He clutched
desperately to Sarah’s shirt, trying to keep himself upright. Sarah and Boulder
managed to grab him and keep him going, trying not to draw too much attention
to the near faint. Finn regained some of his balance and Sarah straightened out
her shirt, which had ridden up so that the sleeve of her t-shirt was up against
her ear, her whole right arm and shoulder exposed.

“Hey,”
said Boulder quietly from the other side of Finn. “You’re being watched.”

Sarah
turned around. Sure enough, one of the guards was staring at her intently, a
weird look on his face. He didn’t look away when he saw that she was looking,
instead he examined her more intently, if that was even possible, a slight
frown on his face. Sarah looked away, her neck prickling. She didn’t know what
was going on, but she didn’t like it. Then a sudden thought hit her, and her
stomach dropped.

“Boulder?”
she asked, because she knew Finn would probably lie to her about this one, but
Boulder wouldn’t, “how bad is my face?” What if the man was staring at her
because half her face was ripped open?

“Pretty
screwed up,” came back Boulder’s unfiltered reply.

Sarah
squashed down a feeling of panic. “What do you mean?” she asked, nervous about
the answer, and ignoring Finn faintly swearing at Boulder.

“The
bees got you pretty bad all down your left side. You’re all swollen and lumpy.
The right side is mostly ok, I guess.”
“I was hit by bees?” she asked confused. She had thought her injuries were more
open, like she was hit by a ton of shrapnel, although she now realised that
there was a distinct lack of blood for it to be that. She thought of the round
rubber bullets that were laced with poison. “But aren’t you meant to
hallucinate?”

Boulder
shrugged. “Maybe you got a dud batch.”

“Nah,”
mumbled Finn faintly. “It wasn’t a direct hit. You kind-of got side-swiped. And
then you did go nuts for a bit, that’s when Boulder carried you. You calmed
down when we chucked water all over you. I think it helped wash a bit of it
away.”

Sarah
glanced over her shoulder again. The man was still staring. She looked back.
They had made it to a dull, dreary building. They were guided down a set of
stairs to basement level. Inside one entire wall was lined with cells. Guards
shoved five people at a time into each cell. There were no beds inside, only
benches lining three of the walls. They sat down, Finn groaning gratefully. The
door slammed shut.

“Yeah,”
joked Boulder, “you better run,” he said as the guard who slammed their door
shut walked off. He barely mumbled the insult but the guard stopped, turning on
his heels.

“What
did you say?” demanded the guard.

“Uh,
nothing,” replied Boulder, who was smart enough to realise that he was
definitely at a disadvantage here.

“No,
no I’m pretty sure you said something,” said the guard.

“He
didn’t mean-” started Sarah, but the guard stopped her with a pointed finger.

“Shut
up. I wasn’t talking to you.”

Sarah
stopped talking.

“Hey,
Martinez, we have a joker over here,” called the first guard.

A
second guard, bigger than the first one, strolled over.

The
first guard, who was averaged-height and wiry, with short, thick bristly hair,
unlocked the door to their cell and opened it. Boulder stayed very still on his
seat. The wiry guard walked over and hauled Boulder to his feet while Martinez
stayed just outside the cell.

“Something
about how I ‘better run’, wasn’t it?” asked the wiry guard, his face inches
away from Boulders.

“Obviously,-”
began Boulder, but it was the wrong choice of word, because the wiry guard
seized it like lightening.

“Obviously?
Obviously? Are you implying that I’m stupid because I didn’t get what you were
saying?”

Boulder
closed his eyes, knowing that whatever he said didn’t matter, because the guard
had already decided what he wanted to do.

“No,
I-”

The
wiry guard punched him in the solar plexus, hard. Boulder sunk to the ground,
trying desperately to bring new air into his lungs. The guard let him fall.
Once on the ground the guard kicked him, hard. Boulder fell on to his side.
Another kick sent Boulder skidding back against the wall. Boulder covered his
face and head with his arms. The guard kept on kicking.

“Stop,”
begged Sarah, “you’re going to kill him.”

The
guard didn’t listen.

“Stop!”
Before she realised what she was doing she had stood up and was pulling the
guard away from Boulder by his shoulders.

“What
the? You little bitch,” snarled the wiry guard. He turned around and slapped
her in the face, the same side that was swollen from the bees. Sarah’s vision
swam with the pain and she stumbled back a few paces. The guard snorted and
turned back to Boulder. Sarah launched herself on his back. This time he
elbowed her heavily in the stomach, sending her sprawling on the ground. He
stepped away from Boulder and stood over her.

“You
stupid little twat,” he spat. He raised a boot, ready it to bring it down on
her head. Sarah closed her eyes.

“Douglas!”
yelled a voice.

The
boot didn’t come down. Sarah opened her eyes. The wiry guard was still standing
over her, but he was looking at someone else approaching. Sarah glanced quickly
around the rest of the cell. Boulder was still curled up against the wall. Finn
was, surprisingly, also on the ground. It looked like he had tried to help one
of them but had collapsed from blood loss instead. The rest of the occupants
were sitting on their benches, also staring at the new man. Sarah noticed even
Martinez at the door had taken a respectful step back, with a look on his face
that obviously regretted getting involved.

“Sir?”
asked Douglas. He took half a step back from Sarah. Sarah stayed where she was.
She figured that getting up might be a poor move to make.

The
man walked into the cell. Sarah could see him more clearly now. With a
sickening feeling that had nothing to do with her getting knocked around she
realised that it was the man who had been staring at her earlier. She had
thought that he was just another one of the guards, but she was wrong. He was
an officer. He looked down at her.

“Get
up,” he ordered.
Sarah got up. She stood before the two of them, feeling terribly exposed.

“Which
of these people came with you?” asked the officer.

Sarah
bit her lip. She wasn’t sure how to reply to that. On one hand she was a
prisoner by the enemy who by all reports regularly tortured, experimented on,
and worked to the death their prisoners. On the other hand he had just stopped
her and Boulder from being beaten to death by one of his own. Would it be
better or worse for the other two to be involved? She was saved by having to
decide when Boulder piped up.

“I
did, Sir,” he rasped, obviously still in quite a bit of pain. Clearly, he had
decided that his best chance lay with the officer than the guard.

“And
me,” said Finn.

The
officer turned to Sarah. “Is this true?”

Sarah
nodded her head and then, realising that he was expecting her to actually talk,
she stuttered out a, “yes, Sir.”

The
officer stared at her for a moment longer and then turned to Douglas. “You
don’t touch those three. If you do, both myself and the Captain will know about
it. Understood?”

The
guard was obviously surprised and confused, but he replied with his own, “Yes,
Sir.”

“Good.”
The officer strode out of the cell and passed through a door.

Douglas
gave them a funny look and then walked out of the cell, locking it behind him.

“What
do you think that was about?” he asked Martinez, looking genuinely confused as
to why anybody would stop him beating the prisoners.

Martinez
shrugged. “Beats me. The officers always do weird things.”

“Yeah,
true that.” Douglas and Martinez walked away from their cell, occasionally
clanging on the bars of the other cells. Someone three cells down started to
cry.

Sarah
turned back to find Finn and Boulder staring at her. They had both managed to
prop themselves up, so that although they were still sitting on the floor,
their backs were resting against the bench.

“Do
you know him?” asked Finn. “The officer, I mean?”

Sarah
stared back at them, equally nonplussed. “No.” She shrugged her shoulders. “I
have as much of an idea of what is going on as you guys do.”

“Well,
he definitely seems to know you,” replied Boulder. “Maybe he thinks you’ve got
a nice ass?”

“Shut
up, Boulder,” snapped Finn.

“Let’s
just hope that it’s not going to get us killed,” muttered Sarah.

“You
and me both,” said Boulder.