Gulliver's Fugitives - Keith Sharee [68]
She pulled him up. Then she grabbed Picard with her other hand and heaved them both toward the door. They were as docile as sleepy toddlers.
She looked up and down the corridor for a moment, then ducked back in the cell. She unhooked a thought grenade from her belt, tripped the safety and the activator, then leaned back out and threw it.
She waited for a few seconds after she heard the little peep. Then she pulled Picard and Riker out the door. The van she’d liberated from the disk-vault was parked right outside. A bit farther down the corridor, a group of CS men stood blinking and scratching their heads, stopped in mid-assault. The thought grenade lay at their feet. One of them started to play with it as though it were a soccer ball.
Amoret opened the back of the van and pushed Riker and Picard in, then ran around to the front. As she climbed into the cab, she saw a phalanx of one-eyes come whipping around the corner behind her.
She floored the power pedal and the electric van took off.
She careened around the bends in the corridors and kept her head low. She knew the van itself would partially protect her and her passengers from the radiation guns, at least from fire coming from the rear.
But the van couldn’t protect itself. The radiation from the one-eyes behind her crackled and arced across the metal surfaces inside. Her poor passengers huddled together in the back like animals bewildered by lightning.
A CS man stepped into the van’s path and raised his weapon. Amoret ducked. A bright sheet of errant voltage rippled inside the cab. Amoret’s hands jerked off the wheel, shocked by the energy, and the van banged and scraped against the side of the corridor.
She swerved around another corner and saw her destination. Down this ramp … The long descent allowed her to pick up speed and gain distance from the one-eyes.
Before her were doors stenciled “Clean Room 3.” She kept her foot jammed on the pedal, braced herself, and slammed into the doors.
The van ended up inside the lab. Several technicians backed away from the van. On a table near them, Data was strapped down, lifeless.
Amoret activated her last thought grenade, opened the van window, and threw the canister. She ducked down. When the little peep sounded she caught just a taste of the numbing wave, but it wore off in a moment.
She drove the van forward until it bumped against the base of the lab table. The lab technicians stared at her, heads cocked like baffled puppies.
“Whuh?” said one.
She gave the van more juice and pushed the table toward the next set of doors, which were standing open. Thick blast doors; the next lab room doubled as an emergency shelter in case of insurgent attack.
Once she’d gotten the van and the table inside, she swung the heavy doors closed and threw the magnetic bolt. Then she looked around and picked up a wrench. She smashed it repeatedly against the switch until sparks flew and the switch was dead.
She then opened the back of the van and pulled out Riker and Picard. The two men stumbled onto the floor and looked blankly at her and each other.
“Sit,” she said, pushing Riker into a chair. “You have to wake up.”
She slapped his face several times.
“Cut it out,” he said irritably, waving her off as if she were a fly.
“No! You have to wake up!”
The concrete doors clacked against their stops. The CS were trying to get in.
She slapped him again. “What’s your name?”
“William.”
“William who?”
Riker looked at the doors, heard them being struck repeatedly from outside.
“Someone is at the door,” he said frowning. “Shouldn’t we let them in?”
“No! You need to wake up!”
He shook his head, trying to get rid of the cobwebs.
“What happened?”
“They almost deleted your mind, that’s what. And they’re going to have another chance, if we don’t do something right now.”
“Why do I feel so …”
“I had to use a thought-numbing grenade to get you free.”
“Oh …”
Riker looked at the inert, synthetic-skinned form on the