Title: Sam Lloyd Chapter 4/? Author: drovar Fandom: Spenderfic Rating: PG Status: WIP Archive: Not until the entire story is finished, thanks. E-mail: drovar@mediaone.net Website: The Ferretcage http://parkers-place.net/ferretcage/ Notes: It's been a while since I posted Chapter 3. If you'd like to read the other chapters you can find the links below. All the chapters are fairly short, and may be rewritten when the story is finally completed. http://www.parkers-place.net/ferretcage/fiction/Lloyd.txt http://www.parkers-place.net/ferretcage/fiction/Lloyd2.txt http://www.parkers-place.net/ferretcage/fiction/Lloyd3.txt Disclaimers: Not mine . . . not yet anyway. Summary: A quick escape leads Spender and Lloyd to more questions. John Byers looked over the large common room the gunman shared. Everything was as it had been the day before, issues of their newsletter, layouts, proposed stories, piles of research material, all lay scattered about as they always had, and yet everything, *everything* had changed. Frohike and Sam Lloyd sat huddled over an atlas of The Eastern United States, arguing animatedly over routes and travel times. Langly sat at his terminal nearby, his fingers pounding across the keyboard in a staccato rhythm as he switched between surveillance cameras looking for anything or anyone suspicious. They had long ago tapped into the various security cameras in the area and added a few other their own in well-hidden locations. On the other side of the room Spender was organizing and filling a large pack with assorted equipment and supplies. It was well past noon and the two men had to get moving soon. They were in danger, they all were. "Do you have everything Spender?" Byers asked as he joined him at the table. Spender looked haggard, a man with too little sleep kept going by too much coffee and a big shot of adrenaline. "I think so, " Spender said as he shut down the laptop the gunmen had provided and started packing it away. The hastily burned CD-ROM contained all the data the Gunmen had been able to squeeze out of the FBI databases on the duplicates, names, dates, histories, and one eerily similar photo after another. It was a priceless tool for the quest to come. "Look, Byers . . . . John," Spender said after a moments pause. Byers grinned and held up his hand before Spender could go any further. "It's okay, we wouldn't have missed this . . ." It was Spender's turn to interrupt. "Do you have any idea exactly what *this* is? What it means? Or why? Or even who's doing it?" "Well, the *who* I suspect you know as well as I do." "My Father." Byers nodded once in agreement. "If he *is* your father of course." Spender's body gave a jerk. His eyelids fluttered and the life drained out of his face. His eyes that had been alert and sharp a moment before were now muddy unfocused pools. The laptop slid into the bag with a solid thump as it dropped from his suddenly slack hands. Spender began to tumble over as lax muscles suddenly gave way. Byers grabbed the slumping agent and eased him to the floor, untangling his arms from the pack and stretching him out carefully. It didn't appear to be a seizure, Byers had seen a few of those, no convulsions, or spasms. Spender seemed to have suddenly slipped into a deep, dreamless sleep. He heard a thump and a shout from Frohike and Langly. He looked up to see Langly's wide eye's darting back and forth behind a haze of frizzy blond hair. Frohike was half-dragging, half-carrying Lloyd to the couch. He sat the other man with a heave and a grunt and turned to Byers. "What the hell happened John?" Byers motioned for Langly's help and the two of them carefully set the unconscious Spender on the couch next to Lloyd. The two of them together like this emphasized their eerie duality more than ever. It was still a bit unsettling to look at them. Finally Byers pulled his pipe from his mouth and spoke. "I hit a 'Kill Switch', I think," he said. "You mean they're . . . ?" Langly blurted out. Frohike looked momentarily sick at the thought. "Not literally dead, no," Byers answered. "Out, non-ambulatory, not really sleeping I'd guess, but not really aware of their surroundings." "Verbally induced narcolepsy?" Byers shook his head as he sat Spender upright next to Lloyd. "Similar effects, but this isn't a naturally occurring condition. It's an implanted trigger." "What'd you say to him?" Langly asked. And who ever heard of a human Kill Switch, and even if it's true, why?" "I suggested that maybe CGB Spender wasn't really his father. As to why . . . a Kill Switch is a control. It stops an autonomous system from running amuck." Spender and Lloyd both stirred at that moment. Their eyes blinking rapidly the two men sat up in unison, robbing their faces in their hands before looking up at the Lone Gunmen clustered around them. "What happened?" They asked together, and then turned to look at each other. Byers started to explain when Langly's voice cut through the conversation. He was standing in front of his terminal, blocking the screen. "We've got black sedans closing fast. We've got two minutes max." There was a moment of quiet escalating tension before the gunmen broke into a scattered frenzy of grabbing and packing. Within ninety seconds each gunman surfaced with a backpack and case of documents, research and backups. Spender and Lloyd grabbed their supplies and exchanged an uneasy glance, the ominous black sedans had vanished from the monitor, they were close. "C'mon," Byers said as he headed toward the hallway leading to the back of the building. "We'll take the back door." Spender stopped in mid-step. "You don't have a back door." Byers grinned and lead them quickly down a narrow stairway and through a dark corridor that seemed to run underneath the main room above. Langly and Frohike were kneeling at the base of the back wall. With considerable grunting and swearing the two men managed to raise what turned out to be a false wall, revealing a dank passage leading deeper into the dark earth. Langly began to step through the narrow opening when the staccato blast of automatic weapons fire filled the room above their heads. "Time to rabbit." Langly said as he threw a switch that filled the rough corridor with the dim glow of emergency lights. Byers quickly ushered Spender and Lloyd through the doorway. In moments the wall was back in place, and the sounds of gunfire faded as they hurried down the underground passage. After a minute of quick retreat Spender pulled Byers to a stop. "Where are we going?" he asked. Byers pulled a set of keys from his pocket and dropped them into Spender's hand. "Fifteen feet ahead the tunnel splits . . . " Byers paused and turned back the way they had come. The faint but decidedly real sounds of angry voices could be heard. Byers stepped aside and let Langly and Frohike pass as he spoke, his words coming in a quick torrent. "You'll take the right hand, we'll take the left. Your passageway will come out into a storm sewer; it should be dry. That will eventually lead you to a closed industrial park. You'll find a car there, it's a beater, but it'll get you away before it dies . . . probably." An explosion of gunfire behind them silenced any further conversation. Byers got one last look at Spender and Lloyd fleeing down the corridor before he joined his companions in a mad dash for their lives. * * * Spender blinked and shaded his eyes as he and Lloyd emerged from the dark tunnel and into bright sunlight. Byers had told the truth, sad and sorry as it was, the car was a beater, a faded blue sedan shot through with rust and dirt. It didn't look like it would get ten feet, let alone out of the DC area. Still, it was all they had besides a meager pack of supplies, what little cash they could scrape together in a rush, and a borrowed laptop. Spender hefted the bag on his shoulder and trotted toward the car. As they approached Spender dug the car keys out of his pocket and tossed them into the air without looking. The keys sailed in a short arc and landed neatly in Lloyd's outstretched hand. Both men stopped suddenly and stared at each other over the top of the car. "What just happened?" Lloyd wondered aloud, holding up the keys in his hand. Spender rubbed his eye with his free hand while holding on to the precious laptop. "I'm not sure, I just felt right and certain, like I was simply moving them from one of my own hands to the other." Lloyd nodded in agreement. "I think we better get out of the city or we may never find out." The men settled into the car without further discussion. The engine sputtered once and settled into a surprisingly smooth purr as Lloyd put the car in gear. In moments they were winding their way through blocks of run down and closed factories. Spender pulled the laptop from its case and was quickly scanning through photos, locations and data. "Where to?" Lloyd asked as they approached the main highway. Spender shut the laptop down and dropped it back into its case. "Not far, not far at all." [End Chapter 4]