Chapter 30 - The Fractured Command
No sound came out. No whistle, no blast of air.
Just a violent, high-frequency shockwave that popped my eardrums and sent a blinding spike of pain through my sinuses.
Rex instantly seized.
His jaws locked open in mid-air, a sickening choke rattling in his throat as if an electric current had surged through his spinal column. His claws slid across my leather jacket, raking uselessly against the zipper. The mechanical blackness in his pupils shuddered, contracting rapidly like a camera aperture snapping shut against bright sunlight, revealing thin slivers of terrified amber.
He staggered backward off my chest, his hind legs buckling beneath him as he hit the tarmac on his side, whining pitifully, his paws scrabbling against the gravel as if trying to run while paralyzed.
"What is that?" the agent demanded, taking two frantic steps back, his polished composure shattering for the first time. He jammed the button on the pocket watch repeatedly. "Asset Zero, execute! Override code Alpha-Seven! Kill!"
Rex violently shook his massive head, slamming his muzzle against the dirt, fighting the invisible warfare raging inside his skull. One eye was completely dilated into nightmarish predatory black; the other was clear, frightened, and human-like in its agony.
I scrambled up from the gravel, spitting blood and bile, the bronze whistle clutched tight in my fist.
"He didn't program him to be a weapon," I breathed, realizing the horrifying symmetry of my father's design. "He gave him two brains. The monster for the military... and a lock only his bloodline could pick."
From the ridge above, the howls were suddenly deafening.
The mist along the treeline began to break. Through the ghost-white veil of the morning mountain fog, shapes were moving—silent, low, and impossibly fast. Dozens of them. Broad-shouldered silhouettes gliding effortlessly between the dark pine trunks, their eyes catching the pale dawn light like phosphorus embers.
The fifty clones were no longer waiting for orders. The ultrasonic pulse from the whistle had rippled across the mountain valley, cutting through Campbell’s digital carrier wave.
The agent looked up at the ridge, his face draining of all color. "You idiot... you didn't disarm him."
"What did I do?" I whispered.
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"The whistle wasn't a cancellation code," the agent stammered, pulling a customized Sig Sauer from beneath his trench coat with trembling hands. "It was an assembly beacon."
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