Breaking and Entering with Enhanced Mutants

Wanting to give some love to A Throne for an Alien, the fourth book of the Beta-Earth Chronicles, I thought I’d share an action scene from the book with you. A rather edited passage as the full scene is too long for a simple blog post.

For a quick set-up: For nearly 20 years, The Collective, an international cabal of ruthless scientists, has been Tribe Renbourn’s most consistent threat. Among their many experiments to battle the Plague-With-No-Name was the creation of enhanced mutants like Sasperia Thorwaif Renbourn who has incredible physical ability and an often overheated mental metabolism.

Another such mutant is the elderly Kiem Holenris, the current head of the Collective. After calling a truce with the Renbourns, Holendris was delighted when she learned the children of Sasperia Renbourn, with their combined mutant DNA merged with Malcolm Renbourn’s Alphan genetics, carried the cure to the ancient curse of Beta-Earth.

Problem: Due to extraordinary circumstances, the files with the cure are only on one electronic pad. And that pad was stolen by agents of Gant Thanq, an evil member of the royal household of Hitilec.

Holenris knows the only way to save the world is to steal the pad back in a night invasion of Thanq’s headquarters. It will take two enhanced mutants to pull it off, even two old adversaries who both rely on the same special medicines to stay alive.

So here’s how Sasperia describes the adventure, with some sections cut for length. I probably should define a number of terms, but that would add to the length I’m trying to control. Hopefully, nothing will be too incomprehensible to throw off your enjoyment of this little battle:

I confidently turned and walked to the bedroom, where I knew Kiem Holenris was working on the disguise that would hide her features from anyone or anything that might see us even in dark night shadows. When I saw her pulling on tight boots over her feet and calves, I first suspected her gifts in deceit were as marvelous as any Shadow-Kin. I saw her body that bore muscles as broad and limber as Alnenia's. In fact, she seemed built like a man used to carrying heavy materials. As she moved, her limbs stretched and pulled as if those of a young woman. When she looked up at me, I full startled. Her face not yet covered with the black mask, she looked younger than myself. Her short hair was dark and shiny. There was nothing of the crone in her beautiful, uncracked face. Kiem Holenris looked as fresh as the cool, white surface of dawn-bowl cream. For a fleeting moment, I thought, Were the two of us to battle, even I might well lose.

Then, the truth struck me. "Oh Sojoa!" I cried, stepping forward, "You've taken an overdose of our formula! Kiem, this cannot —"

She raised both her arms and flexed her fingers to both interrupt me and test her new strength. "I estimate," she told me with calm, strong tones, "I have perhaps six hours as you see me. Then, yes Sasperia, my body will cruelly incinerate." She smiled with deep happiness. "Little kitty, I need but six hours to complete my life's work. As I said, the need for the Collective will soon pass." She rose, and planted her hands firm on widened hips. "I am prepared to be sacrifice. Let us go."

My mind spinning in a flurry of thoughts, I quickly pulled on my own invasion suit of a close fitting tunic, leggings, gloves, and laced boots. I pulled on the rubber headgear that covered my hair and exposed only my ears, eyes, mouth, and nostrils. I pulled on the belt that had deep pockets with the gas-filters, small explosive materials, and the safe-breaking device. As I dressed, I observed Kiem Holenris examining herself in the mirror, smiling as she stretched her arms, jogged in place, and rotated her torso and head. The backs of her legs rippled in the tightness of her muscles. The energy in her entire frame seemed to crackle in her aura. She looked more and more youthful by the moment.

. . . In a private elevator, we two quickly descended to the basement floor and raced behind rows of trans’s and columns. At and end door, we paused as Kiem looked around. Finally, she nodded, and we darted to a metal cover in the street. Opening the hole, we moved in quick time down the pipe to the tunnels of waste below and made our way to another such opening in an alleyway behind a building next to the Lorilian headquarters.

Following Kiem, I crawled up the side of this unfinished eight level structure. It was a new addition to Monte Carlo waiting for merchants to design what would fill the now empty halls. Like many such skeletons in the area, only vats of paint, spackle, and piles of molding laid behind the uncharged Sojoa sheets we climbed past with ease. using the crevices between stones for finger and toe holds, I felt the almost soft smoothness of the yet unweathered masonry. How strange, I thought, for a Ducal of the Alman Mentela to be creeping up buildings like a Shadow-Kin from Rigil. Instead of participating in loud debates behind long tables, I thought of the Collective agents on the streets below creating small diversions and blocking access to this alley. No one saw our ascent. It felt like I was participating in a battle, now being the warrior I'd not been during the war in Alma.

When Holenris and I reached the roof, we crept to the other side and looked down. Yes, there was the outside ledge across the street called First Draw Way. The level we were targeting was six levels above ground. Behind the inviting porch, we knew the offices of Kuf Oy's Eniq were secure from all directions. How could anyone get to that ledge unless, of course, they could leap across a wide four-laned street? Even then, how could magnificent leapers gain access unseen by electronic eyes and ears?

Together, Kiem Holenris and I laid at the roof edge waiting for the answer to the second question. Over and over in my mind, I measured the length of our jump, how I'd land on the cold ledge, how I'd quickly need to move, and what I'd need to do on entering the room behind the closed arches of thick Sojoa-sheets. As we waited for inky dark to fill the skies over the colorful lights beckoning in the signs below us, I wondered how my companion measured time. Inside her, I thought, each moment must be a lifetime, a memory, a new scheme, new discovery, new disappointment.

. . . I also thought of the wizened face of the woman beside me, seemingly the last head of that Collective that had shaped my fate long before the arrival of Malcolm Renbourn on this world. I thought of my bronze skin tanned under the Bilan sun and how my children, my children alone of all my sisters, had borne the fruit yearned for since history began. What had shaped all civilizations was now answered in genetic ladders that were half alien, half genetic mutations. All these streams had come together in one little pad of electronic data hidden in the offices across from where two women waited. And waited.

. . . In a power station located beams from this place, a mysterious overload suddenly cut all power to this part of the city. All of the colorful tribute to Alpha quickly became as black as what my Husband saw each minute. As if sharing one mind, Kiem and I rose, and ran back halfway across the unseen roof of a quiet building. As if four legs of the same body, we ran forward, building momentum. In the same moment, we launched ourselves high over the street, trusting we'd correctly measured the arc to our landing. As I hit a cold floor and slammed into a stone wall, I knew I had done well. A quick glance to my left told me my partner was safe as well. I felt small breaks in my ankle bones and knew for one brief moment my feet, my hands, my breasts were bruised like a normal woman. As ever, I felt the healing energies quickly repair any damage. Equally as quick, we two flattened our backs beside the Sojoa-doors knowing at least one guard would have heard the thuds and come running. One breath. Two breaths. I heard the lock clicking and then sensed a body moving forward. With one motion, I grabbed an extended arm and twisted it, loosening the chroner from one surprised Secops grip. I pulled the body toward me and slammed a mutant fist under an open mouthed jaw. As this body slumped, I saw Kiem pull the small nose filters from her belt and insert them into her nostrils. I did the same as Kiem tossed several thin vials into the room. We heard coughing, choking noises, and then quiet. Then we heard alarms and quickly ran into the room.

In the dark, I knew Kiem was rushing to a V-AV where she could first turn off the alarms, send a signal through the building's networks that would shut down the backup generators, and mechanically lock the doors to the room from inside. With all the confusion happening within the building, and the planned confusion now erupting in the streets below, with luck we had the time I needed. As Kiem did her labors, I sprang to the wall to the right of the main desk and began ripping off wall coverings, not trying to discover just how to covertly get to the safe we knew was imbedded in the wall. My fingers pulled at thick sheets of laminated wood, but I was strong enough to pull and pry and finally snap off the protective layers. There it was, the sophisticated round door with the triangle of three locks. I reached into my belt pocket and pulled out the small machine I'd had no time to master. All I could do, or was expected to do, was place the circular box between the locks and secure it with the suction cups on the back.

I pulled out three smaller boxes with dangling wires which I secured on each of the locks. Each wire I inserted into the proper holes on the center box, and I pressed a button.

While I waited for the device to do its work, I turned and watched Kiem inserting pads into the computers on the desks. It would be long not before every record, every file within this building or connected to it would find itself scrambled, destroyed, or unusable. Then I heard clicks on the wall beside me.

"Now!" I called.

Kiem ran to my side, as I easily pulled the safe door open. I stood back as Kiem's fingers reached inside and explored all she could grasp. Small piles of objects and pads fell to the floor I bothered not to look down at. Finally, I heard her sigh, "Ah!"

I studied her gloved hands as she held the precious, small green square between her fingers. All across it were tiny raised dots I understood not. For one moment, I watched her eyes mist as she clenched the final solution to the mystery of the ages. I wondered if this was the longest moment of her life.

She looked over at me and nearly thrust the pad into my hands. Wordlessly, I tucked it into my now empty belt pocket while she pulled out other pads and handed them to me. I accepted them all. She stood back and I heard her dropping tiny fire-grenades. As pops and green smoke began to sprout by my feet, we rushed back to the ledge and studied the streets outside.

I had to smile. For some unknown reason, at least unknown to the Net officers and the Secops who'd poured out of this very building, panicked people had pulled their trans's into the wrong lanes and blocked traffic from all directions. Women and men stood in the streets yelling and jumping out of their vehicles. It would have taken only two or three planned agents to start this chaos, and then the turmoil would have cascaded on its own. I turned to smile at Kiem but my thoughts quickly turned on themselves. She was looking down like me, but I could tell her body had begun to quake and quiver. Was it illusion or was her tight-suit becoming too big for the body within?

She looked at me and croaked, "My hair turns white again. Blessed be, little kitty." "Then we must hurry," I cried.

She nodded. We ran back into the room, paused, looked at each other, and then ran. And leaped. I pulled my body to its full length to ensure I at least was able to grab the edge of the empty building's roof. I needn't have worried. I landed flat on my face and belly and felt unaccustomed pain. Even such as I have their limits. And my eyes were beginning to water. As we'd begun our leap, I knew something was wrong. From the corner of my eye, I'd noticed Kiem Holenris's jump was aimed not across the way for this roof. She'd leaped almost straight up, as if jumping to the sky. In that moment, I remembered Malcolm's story of Icarus the Fool who'd flown too close to the Alphan sun with wings of feathers and wax.

I quickly rose on my hands and knees and crept to the edge of the roof. Yes, I saw it below, the terrible crush of someone's trans roof. I saw a black form draped from one end of the bent metal. But the dark night hid the details. Sojoa, Sojoa, I prayed, make her end quick and but one flash of pain. Let her not feel the flames of a body now rebelling against chemicals it can withstand not. She had died with double purpose. To end her existence with minimal pain. And to leave her body as a means to draw Lorilian ire at the Collective. And my family not. Blessed be.


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