"Death Row 01 - The Fugitive" - читать интересную книгу автора (Black Jaid)

Jallor's gaze wandered down to Kerick's penis, then back up to his face.
He was a stupid man, Kerick knew. Sadistic but stupid. And removing the prisoner from his chains would prove to be his downfall.
With the sensory chains on, Kerick never would have stood a chance at escaping.
The moment he ventured outside the perimeter of the Kong penal colony, the sensors within the chains would have detonated and his skin would have gone up in flames, charring him to nothing within seconds.
But on the day of execution the chains were removed...the only day in a Death Row inmate's life where that was so.
Warden Jallor stepped towards him, careful to keep his distance, his smirk deepening. "Fifteen years ago you swore this day would never come to pass," he said in a mocking tone. "Indeed, how the mighty have fallen."
For the first time in fifteen years, Kerick smiled--a gesture that caused the warden's eyes to widen. "Yes," Kerick agreed, his deep rumble of a voice scratchy from a prolonged lack of use, "how the mighty have fallen."
From seemingly out of nowhere, two inmates dressed as guards appeared behind
Jallor. The warden turned his head at the intrusion, but barely had time to gasp before the flash-stick was snatched from his hand, rendering him completely defenseless from an assault.
"What are you doing?" Jallor snapped, his eyes promising retribution, still not fully realizing that the tables had been turned on him. "I gave orders that I was not to be disturbed--"
The warden's words came to a halt when the prisoner holding Jallor's flash-stick peeled off his face armor. The warden gulped as he looked up into the grim ebony face of Elijah Carter, a Death Row inmate who was scheduled to be executed next week.
Kerick walked slowly towards the trio. His nostrils flared as he came to a stop before them, staring down at the wide-eyed warden. With a growl he picked Jallor up off of the ground by the neck, his grip tightening until the warden's throat began to elicit gurgling sounds.
"Don't kill him," Elijah warned. "Not yet." He glanced over to the secret panel in the execution pen that allowed for a magistrate of justice to escape should situations like this one ever arise. That panel would take them to the outermost perimeter of Kong. From there, Kerick, Elijah, and Xavier would be on their own in the jungle. "The DNA scanner only responds to living flesh prints, amigo."
"You sure?" Kerick snarled.
"As sure as I can be."
Kerick grunted, but said nothing. He tightened his hold on the warden's neck fractionally, letting Jallor know he'd never allow him to live once they'd gotten from him the palm scan they sought.
"We need the bitch alive," Elijah reminded him.
Nostrils flaring, Kerick turned his head and stared hard at Elijah. Seeing his familiar face, and realizing as he did that Elijah would be executed next week if they were caught, he regained his sanity long enough to let loose of his hold on the sadistic warden.
Jallor gasped when Kerick released his throat, panting for air as he fell to the ground and turned eyes filled with hatred on the prisoner-turned-executioner.
Kerick smiled slowly, his steel gray eyes locking with the warden's. "Indeed," he murmured, "how the mighty have fallen."
Chapter 2
Altun Ha, former Belize
December 19, 2249 A.D.

"Shit." A beleaguered Nellie Kan ran a hand through her sweat-drenched hair and sighed. She turned to the Spanish-speaking guard of Fathom Systems, Inc. and attempted to converse with him using what little of the language she'd managed to pick up while living and working in the Belizean sector these past two years.

Back when the sector had been its own nation the prominent tongue of the people living here had been English, but that had changed a few decades past when
Belize had become federated within the United Americas of Earth colony. "Que le paso al sistema de ventilacciєn?" she asked in a thick accent. What has happened to the ventilation system?
Christ! she grumbled to herself for the thousandth time in two years, was it too much to ask of the mega-conglomerate company to provide air within the
Altun Ha biosphere for its scientists and other workers? Apparently it was, for she had put the same question to the same guard at least three times a week for as long as she'd lived and worked within the synthetic black glass dome known officially as Biosphere 77.
She took a deep breath and blew it out. She really needed a vacation.
"Doctor Kan, voy a ver lo que pueda hacer antes de irme esta noche," Juan promised on a grin. I'll go see what I can do before I leave for the night,
Doctor Kan. Juan was as accustomed to having this conversation as Nellie was.
"Te digo buenas noches." I bid you goodnight.
Nellie smiled at the aging guard as he turned and walked away, the flash-stick in his hand absently thumping against his armor-encased thigh as he strolled from the sealed chamber, whistling to himself. She watched him for a moment or two before turning back to the virtual reality display module she was currently working with, then settled back in her seat to resume her research.
Three more weeks, she thought excitedly, her heartbeat thumping against her chest as her fingers flicked over the keyboard. At the rate she was acquiring data, she would be able to produce a test serum from a randomly sampled control group of sub-humans within three weeks time.
She refused to consider the possibility that Boris Karli, her chief rival at
Fathom Systems, might beat her to the punch and develop a serum first. She was aware of the fact that the lying, manipulative son-of-a-defective-droid had been thumbing through her notes on the sly, but she doubted that he had enough ingenuity to do anything with them.
If Boris defied expectations and developed a serum, well then, the more power to him. Nellie's goal was to ease the suffering of sub-humans. Dr. Karli's goal was and had always been fame and notoriety--preferably attained with as little work as possible.
Which was why Nellie doubted he'd figure out even the basics to a serum. He was one of those types of males who thought he knew everything, yet understood very little. The serum, she realized, was up to her.
And when it was done, when she had found the answers she was seeking, she would be careful, of course, to never break her word to the older, infected woman who had given her the dusty, worn-out diary that had proven to be a vital aide...and chillingly accurate.
Nellie would never tell anyone--anyone--that the basis of her entire research was derived from the journal of one Dr. Margaret Riley. To do so would mean not only academic suicide, but it could also mean...
Well, she wouldn't think on that.
In life, the discredited Dr. Riley had been branded a heretic by her scientific peers. In death, she was still regarded as heretical, though there were those who whispered behind closed doors that perhaps--perhaps...
Perhaps Dr. Riley hadn't been as insane as the Hierarchy would lead people to believe she had been.
Her ideas had been...bizarre. And because of the oddity of them, because of the fact they had seemed too fantastical, too completely unbelievable, they had been systematically dismissed as the delusions of a paranoid schizophrenic. That schizophrenia had been cured and done away with decades ago...well, no scientist would have dared to bring that reminder up to her accusers in order to defend the outspoken heretic known as Dr. Margaret Riley. Not if they had aspirations for waking up alive the next morning. That nobody had seemed to know exactly who the doctor's accusers were was proof positive it was a stone best left unturned.
Too hot and sweaty to concentrate on her work, Nellie sighed as her hands fell from the keyboard and she slumped further into the chair. She ran a hand through her dark red hair, absently reminding herself it was time to get a hair shearing. A low-maintenance female scientist, she preferred to keep her hair cropped short so she didn't have to mess with it. That she'd allowed it to grow so long was a sure sign of how immersed she'd been in her research as of late.
When the air in the laboratory grew too heavy and oppressive for her to remain inside, she took a deep breath to keep from passing out, then stood up. Parting the heavy woolen robe she was wearing into a wide vee, Nellie removed the thick article of body dщcor, allowing it to fall to the ground and cascade in a puddle around her feet. Naked, she padded across the lab chamber toward a storage closet, her goal to find a sheer robe or pantsuit she could don long enough to reach her domicile.
"Oh come on," she muttered to herself as she rummaged through the storage closet. She parted three woolen lab suits that had been slung haphazardly on cheap hangars to see if any sheerer body dщcors were hanging behind them. "There has to be--"
She stilled, the hair at the nape of her neck stirring. She swallowed nervously, recognizing the sensation she'd just experienced for what it was: