Sergeant Lattimore raised his fist and the squad cracked off a round in-sync; its impact blew through the midnight air. Five armed guards dropped dead inside the barb-wired, machine-gun-towered security perimeter. They were on night watch guarding the entrance to BioTech's underground complex.

     Lattimore pointed to Vince Slotto and Rob Molitar. Vince snapped an opening in the gate with a pair of bolt-cutters.  Rob crawled through the hole and shorted out the power to the emergency generator and the lighting and alarm systems.  Checkpoint One was blacked out and silenced.

     “How much time do we have left, Doc?” he asked.

     Dr. Townshend looked at his watch.  “Two minutes before the helicopters patrol this area.”

     “All right,” Lattimore said.  “Let's go.  Doc, take the point.  You gotta find that human-engineering program disc, so we can take it back to the agency, plus you know your way around here.  Psycho, cover our backs with that M-60.”

     “You got it, Sarge,” Psycho said, grinning.

     Dr. Townshend, carrying a 12-gauge shotgun and a medical bag strapped over his shoulder, led the rangers through the broken-in fence and down a ramp-way into a subwalk.

     “Now we're in,” Lattimore said. 

     They stood on a rail platform dressed in black fatigues and armed with automatic weapons, explosives, and medical and electronic equipment.

     A helicopter circled around the unlit compound.

     “Clover Three to Base.  Enforced entry at Checkpoint One, Sector A.  Maximum security alert.”

     “Sarge, man,” Molitar said, “We'd better get out of here fast.  Once you knock out a camera on a Watchtower system, central dispatch code- reds all its other operable checkpoints.”

     “Why don't we bypass the shuttle,” Dr. Townshend said.  “There's a tunnel that runs alongside this track.  It's used to service the electrical systems.”

     “Come on, let's move.  Now!” Lattimore ordered the others.

     They raced down the tracks into a tunnel.  A train rumbling off in the distance shook the ground beneath their feet.

     Dr. Townshend hopped off the tracks and swung open a door, pointed a flashlight into the entrance, and waved everyone inside, slamming a door behind him, train blasting by outside.

     The brightly-lit passageway had white-tiled walls on which miles of colored conduit and blue and red-lit LED panels were circuited.  Hallways intersected from the main tunnel.

     “Any cameras down here?” Molitar asked.

     “That doesn't matter anyway—look!” Psycho yelled.

     Two armored troop carriers pulled out of the intersections, surrounding them.  Machine-gun turrets swung in their direction.  A dozen guards stepped out of the cars and aimed their guns.  “Drop your weapons and raise your hands,” a grey-haired commander ordered.

     Lattimore laughed.  “Go drink your prune juice, Old Man.” He turned to his men and told them to hit the floor.  Bullets came from everywhere.  Psycho mowed down the troops firing at him.  Molitar lobbed a grenade into the gun turret of one car.  Vince fired a rocket at the carrier on his side, while Lattimore and Dr. Townshend sprayed the remaining guards with automatic fire and buckshot.

     “Let's get out of here!” Lattimore shouted.

     “Where to?” Townshend asked.

     “I don't care.  Just haul ass!”

     “The cameras will spot us.”

     “Well, is there a circuit box where we can short them out?”

     “Down the hallway.”  The doctor pointed behind the wrecked armored cars.

     “You think you can fake out these cameras, Rob?” Lattimore asked as they trotted to the circuit-breakers.

     “What the hell do I look like?  The Rock Video Channel?  I don't know.  If they're numbered on the breakers, I might be able to switch screens with a vacant hallway each time we pass by a camera.”

     “Look,” Lattimore said.  “Rob, you check out the panels.  Vince, stay with him.  Doc and Psycho, come with me.  If his camera trick doesn't work, we're going to have to find another way around.”

     That same pressure took hold on him when he was told by management that CURE was being phased out to be replaced by MATRIX.  He believed in the research BioTech was doing with CURE.  It was developed to manufacture vaccines via genetic engineering to prevent defects.  Investors stopped funding CURE to back MATRIX, a human engineering super-computer designed to clone human beings to become BioTech's servants for business, government or finance, or military.  It was a Top Secret project.

     MATRIX was more cost-effective than years of internationally-financed global terrorism that failed to break the back of society and set the stage for a new Messiah to come into the world and make all things clean.  People could instead be programmed into following BioTech's plan as physiological robots to start a world-dominating, corporate government.

     Dr. Townshend worked with MATRIX through its beginning stages, then resigned from the company.  He could not pledge allegiance to a group of animals wanting to match the Divine.

     When he testified about MATRIX  before a Senate subcommittee, he was contacted by the CIA, who introduced him to the Rangers.  He accepted an assignment to seize the computer program and return it to the agency.  If he was caught, BioTech would have him assassinated and make it look accidental.

     He pointed the flashlight taped into his shotgun into the darkness.  Sounds of pattering footsteps circled around his path.  Out of nowhere, mobs of rodents charged at them.  Psycho swung his gun around and opened fire, then everyone else followed suit.

     “Keep firing till they're all gone!” Lattimore shouted over the shooting.

     “What are they?” Molitar asked.

     “Ralves,” the doctor answered.  “They're wolves cross-bred with rats.  They keep them down here.”

     They killed all the Ralves.  Lattimore tapped Dr. Townshend on the shoulder.

     “How much longer till we get to the lab?” he asked.

     “It's about another half-mile from here, Sergeant.  You'll see an exit door with a red neon exit sign.  We'll probably have to pick the lock to get in.”

     “I'll see if I can get Rob to find any alarm wires down here,” Lattimore said.

     “You'd better make it quick, Sergeant.  I don't know what else is waiting for us.”

     “Don't worry, Doc.  We can handle it.”

     “Sarge, look!” Vince yelled.  He pointed straight ahead.

     Long-haired, dirt-covered creatures stampeded in their direction.  Shouting, they showered their hunted with spears, rocks, and Molotov cocktails.

     “Pull back!  Psycho, help me cover!” Lattimore hollered.

     “We can't!  They're coming straight up behind us, too!” Rob said.

     “Then keep moving, straight ahead.  Rock ‘n' roll and aim your shots.”

     Townshend dove on his stomach under the crossfire and reloaded his shotgun.  A wall smacked him in the head as he jumped to his feet.

     “Doc, get up, damn it now,” Lattimore barked.

     “I can't.  There's a wall in front of me.”

     “Keep firing!” Lattimore shouted to the others.

     “Sarge,” Vince said, “we gotta do SOMETHING.”

     “Got any ideas?” Lattimore offered.  They lay on their bellies shooting at masses of anthropophagus.  For every one shot down, ten more seemed to swarm at them.

     “Rob,” Vince yelled, “get over here quick!”  He handed him two grenades.  “Load that 203 up with these and fire into the crowd.  I'll use a white phosphorus rocket.”

     “Do you want to kill us off too, Vince?  Is that your idea?”

     “It's our only way out, Sarge.  We're not supposed to surrender.”

     “Look,” Lattimore said.  “Just keep firing, there's-----“

     “Sarge,” Psycho said, “Doc found a ladder going up that wall.”

     “Let's get up there, then.  Rob and Vince, stay behind us.  When we're all up there, THEN fry those bastards.”

     They scaled the wall.  Vince and Rob fired their projectiles.  A fireball cloud drove the mob away.  After Lattimore ran an ammo check, and Townshend looked everyone over for injuries, they all huddled beneath a stairwell leading to an emergency exit.

     “Here's a map to this place.”  Rob rolled it out on the floor.  “According to this, we're standing right outside the lab.”

     “Get out your side-arms and fix silencers,” Lattimore said.  “I'm going up there.  Rob, you come with me and pick open that lock.  If I'm not back in five minutes, then you guys come in after me.  Don't fire unless you're being shot at.”

     Lattimore stood behind the door listening for any signs of occupation.  All he could hear was a low, humming, mechanical symphony of cooling units, data signals and bussing printers.  Molitar opened the lock and stayed behind.

     Lattimore tiptoed into the cylindrical research center.  A black super-computer in the middle of the lab flashed fluorescent green messages on its terminal.  From a room behind the rest of the computers, a window viewed two robotic arms holding an eyedropper over two petrie dishes.  Alongside the dishes stood embryos, encased in transparent containers.

     “Sergeant Lattimore.”

     He turned around and aimed his weapon at a man in white lab clothing.

     “Don't worry, we knew you and your men were coming here.  Tell them it's safe to come in.”

     Lattimore kept his pistol aimed. 

     “My name's Lifkin,” the man said, raising his hand.  “I've been sent here by the shop to meet you guys and pick up the program.  I'll show you an easy way out of here.”

     “Really.  Then how come no one radioed in and told us?  We're supposed to hand it in back at Washington.”

     “Code red.  We couldn't risk the chance of someone listening in on your frequency. I have a security clearance to make sure no one else gets in here.”

     Or gets out alive, Lattimore thought.  When you're a soldier, a US politician is always your own worst enemy.

     “You okay, Sarge?” Psycho asked as he walked in.

     “Looks like we've got us some company here, boys,” Lattimore said.

     “Gentlemen, I'm Magnus Lifkin.  There's been a change in your orders-----“

     “Sit down, Lifkin.”  Lattimore shoved him into a chair.

     Vince pulled Lattimore out of everyone's ear range.  “What goes on, Sarge?”

     “Ulterior motives.”

     About ten years before, Congress had passed a bill legalizing the creation of animals using recombinant DNA.  And Washington would think nothing of getting their hands on a government cloning program, and killing off an elite assault squad and a doctor in order to cover up any traces of espionage.

     “So what do we do?” Vince asked.

     “Tie up Lifkin and gag him.  I'll have the doctor get the program.  Have Rob make sure these doors are locked.”

     No sooner had Rob gone to check the locks than battering rams boomed in on all three doors at once.  It wouldn't be long before they were broken down.  Townshend began taking out the program.  Lattimore ordered Rob to find an escape route through one of the ceiling panels.

     “Psycho,” Lattimore said, “go over and make sure Doc's okay.”

     “This is the Century Police.  We'll give you five minutes to drop your weapons and come out peacefully, or we're coming in.”

     “You heard the man, Doctor.  We don't have much time,” Psycho said.

     The doctor stood in a trance, looking at the embryos and trying to remember something in the Hippocratic Oath:  “…perform no operation for a criminal purpose, even if solicited, far less suggest it.”

     “What're those, anyway?” Psycho asked, pointing at the containers.

     “People made to order, son.”  The doctor led the gunner to the Biodata bank.  “With the program linked to this system, the DNA of these embryos has been designed to carry out BioTech's disillusions of grandeur.”

     “Four minutes,” a megaphoned voice barked outside the lab.

     “Doc, let's go,” Lattimore hissed.

     “What're you gonna do with ‘em?” Psycho asked.

     “I'm not sure.  If they live and grow into maturity, they could mate with our children, and create more of their own kind.  I can cut off their life-support systems----but I only thought I had to take MATRIX , not innocent lives, in the process.”

     Dr. Townshend removed the operating system and took two tapes out of the master file disk drives.

     “Three minutes.”

     He tossed the software and data into an attaché case.  “Here it is, gentlemen.”

     “Vince,” Lattimore said.  “Help me unplug the computers. Doc, have you decided what to do with these?”  He pointed to the embryos.

     “Let BioTech deal with them.  It's their baby.”

     “Why don't you just waste them, Doc?” Psycho asked.  “Hell, we've left a long, bloody trail behind us.  They don't need to be alive.”

     “I want them to live, so this company can answer them when they're old enough to start asking questions.”

     Seeing how everyone wanted to seem divine, in the name of good intentions, Townshend decided to leave the consequences of creation to its creators.  And maybe some day those assembly-lined people would rise up against their manufacturers in a micro-cosmic Eden.

     Rob slid back down from a ceiling opening.

     “You find us a way out?” Lattimore asked.

     “There's a cave running up over the beams.  If we keep moving north we can make it.”

     They hoisted themselves up through the ceiling, pulled up and twisted around plumbing pipes, and burrowed their way into a cave.  After what seemed like a lapse of eternity walking in darkness, they found an opening of daylight.

     “Black Horseman to Red Eagle.  Requesting extraction at coordinates 35 and 115,”  Molitar called in on his radio.  Soon a chopper came hovering around the tumble-weeded, cactused desert, where it picked up the five.  After takeoff, a suitcase dropped out of the helicopter's side door.  It exploded on its way down to Earth.