“I think so,” Ethan said. “I couldn’t see that much detail, but the clothes match, and she was as tall as some of the men. I saw a man carried off a plane in a stretcher—I assume that was you. The woman fought some of the guards, and then they dragged her inside.”
Roland eagerly leaned forward. “Have you seen her since?”
They all shook their heads.
“If she’s a prisoner here, we’ll find her,” Destiny said. “We found you and Pete—well, Pete kind of found us. You too, actually.”
Roland looked at Pete with a complete lack of recognition, then shook his head. “Sorry. I must’ve been asleep or unconscious.”
When Pete said nothing, Merlin chimed in, “He was the bear.”
Roland looked politely disbelieving. “The grizzly bear? I assumed they were doing animal experiments, and one escaped.”
“Didn’t they put you through Ultimate Predator yet?” Destiny asked.
“That bull—” Roland began, then, to her amusement, changed it to, “That absurd bit of psy ops? Yes, they did. I suppose it’s to test whether prisoners can be brainwashed into believing something as ridiculous as a procedure that gives them powers and turns them into some kind of were-animal.”
“It’s not ps
y ops,” Destiny replied. “It’s real.”
His forehead creased with incredulity. “They actually think it works?”
“No, I mean it really does work.” Frustrated at his visible disbelief, she tried again. “Why do you think they’d go to all the trouble of kidnapping people and building a secret base if it didn’t?”
“The military has been known to pour a lot of money and effort into things that don’t work,” Roland said drily. “Invisible aircraft. Mind-control. Clairvoyance. In the 60s there was a project that employed hundreds of people and ran for years, consisting of a bunch of guys out in the desert trying to kill goats by staring at them and breaking their noses trying to walk through walls.”
“I can’t demo right now,” Merlin said, indicating the handcuff lock. “And Pete shouldn’t. Ransom, do you even have a shift form?”
Ransom didn’t reply. He was off in his own world again, watching something far away.
“So somebody’s going to have to strip,” Merlin concluded.
Roland’s eyebrows raised nearly high enough to lift the ceiling. Ethan and Destiny looked at each other, then Ethan started to pull off his shirt.
“Incoming!” Ransom pointed toward the door Pete was guarding.
“I don’t…” Pete began, then stiffened. Softly, he said, “Yeah, I hear footsteps. Very quiet. They’re trying to sneak up on us.”
Ethan and Destiny stepped up to the door with their rifles ready; they couldn’t risk becoming tigers and getting taken down with a dart.
Pete glanced at them. “The darts don’t affect me. I could go after them as a bear.”
“No!” exclaimed everyone but Roland, who practically had What gang of lunatics have I fallen in with hovering over his head.
“I could attack them as a raptor, then come back and finish with the handcuffs,” Merlin volunteered.
“Will darts bounce off your skin?” Destiny inquired.
“Umm.” Merlin scratched his chin. “I guess we’ll find out. I could be a small one, so I wouldn’t be hard to carry if they don’t…?”
Destiny rarely snapped at people, no matter how stressed out she got. She prided herself on calm under pressure. But she couldn’t help hissing at him, “You’re not going to stop anyone if you’re the size of a chicken!”
Merlin seemed unperturbed. “Ever had a chicken fly into your face?”
The enemies attacked before she could reply. Destiny, Ethan, and Pete ducked back against the walls as tranquilizer darts hissed into the room, smacking into walls and bedframes.
Merlin and Roland also ducked, but they were both in the line of fire and had no way to shield themselves. A dart missed Roland’s chest by a fraction of an inch, and another stuck in Merlin’s loose sleeve before clattering to the floor. The three at the door returned fire, but it was only a matter of time before both Merlin and Roland would be hit.