The crowd was shouting now. This was Thayer’s moment.
“They’ve already taken Belgium. They’ve come for Europe. And now they are coming for you!” The vibrations of her amplified voice rattled Jack’s rib cage. “The Pacifica Institute has a vaccine for the Dark Virus. We have our own trained forces that can protect you. But our government wants to silence us. They call us traitors. I say they are the traitors!”
The crowd roared in approval.
“We must end this genocidal regime. We must oust them before they exterminate us!” Onstage, men and women bearing navy-blue flags with three white stars joined Thayer.
“Together we will march to the White House—and take back our government!”
Are you still hoping to stop me, Jack?
Jack spun around. The crowd surrounded him, but no one was paying him any attention.
Hadley is on the wrong side of history, Jack. But you know that. You could have stopped me already. But you won’t.
Jack jolted. For a second, he thought Wyeth had darkened him. But no. Had he blacked out?
The crowd around him stirred. Someone near him yelled, “We can’t hear you!” The sound system had gone silent.
“. . . Jack?” Freddy’s voice sounded in Jack’s ear.
“I’m here.”
“You disappeared for a second—”
“I think we all did,” Jack said over the monitor. “It’s a dead zone—Wyeth’s here.”
Jack’s band lit up red. An arrow pointed into the crowd. He looked up. A man in a baseball cap jolted. Then slowly, the man walked away. Wyeth had darkened him. Jack didn’t need the arrow on his band. He felt it, as clearly as he had heard Wyeth’s voice in his head. But the man was now out of reach.
“Dark blue cap.” Jack shouted. “He’s been darkened.”
“Voss—blue hat, at your six.” Asha said over the monitor. “Don’t let him touch anyone. Jack, where’s Wyeth?”
The crowd chanted, fists raised. Jack pushed his way toward the man in the cap. Voss’s voice came over the monitor, breathless.
“What is—?” He clipped out.
The crowd’s frenzy increased as Jack fought his way through. Asha shouted for Voss to respond. Jack was in a forest of humanity, arms and backs and shouting.
Jack’s hair blew back as something flew past him with the force of a train. Jack craned his neck to the left to see. It was a body, thrown as if shot out of a cannon. Jack looked back through the path cut through the crowd. Voss stood there, hands on his knees.
“An operative just cut me off. The Rogue Team is here!” he managed to get out. “Get down! That guy has some kind of jet propulsion.”
A blast knocked Jack off his feet. Then everything went black. He felt legs and torsos and shoulders pile on top of him. He struggled to push his way out of the pile. The weight squeezed the air from his lungs. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t cry for help.
Then somebody grabbed his wrist and yanked. He was pulled through the sweat and flesh. He gasped.
Voss held him up by the shoulders, checking his eyes. “You okay, man? Still with us?”
Jack weakly patted his chest. “Alexander’s blast suit. It absorbed the impact. Saved my life, I think.”
Voss steadied him. “I lost that rogue operative. Wyeth has to be nearby.”
Jack looked up in time to see the man in the blue hat at the base of the stage. The man placed his arm around a young woman in braids who seemed surprised at the gesture. Her chin snapped up. Her friends, wearing matching orange T-shirts, shifted away from her. But it was too late; she reached out to one of them. The Dark Virus crackled and spread.
The crowd immediately sensed that something was terribly wrong. Those closest to the girls in orange pushed away but not quickly enough. Jack pulled his blade. He was caught in a tidal wave of darkening as it spread through the crowd.
The first darkened came at him, black eyes filled with rage. The monster lunged at his throat. Jack got his blade up in time to strike him across the chest with the blaze. The darkened’s exoskeleton crackled. Its eyes instantly fluttered back to normal, the rage vanishing just as the thing shattered into dust and was blown away by the wind. Another darkened leapt toward Jack.
On the other side of the stage, a narrow tornado of snow formed, right in the center of a mob of darkened. The tornado jerked as Asha gripped the end of the funnel in her fist. She cracked it like a whip through the darkened, sending them flying. But more swelled toward her.
“Asha needs help!” Jack shouted over the monitor.
“On it!” Claire sprinted through the darkened crowd, clearing them out of her way like dead leaves blasted by a leaf blower. They catapulted straight into the mob attacking Asha. She flicked her fingers, and the darkened, now all in a heap, ricocheted off each other like popcorn popping. Tiny sparks flew as she manipulated the ionic charges. Only Freddy, ably swinging his blade through the fray, seemed immune to Claire’s static.
Dr. Thayer’s voice shoved through the commotion. “The government has unleashed the Dark Virus on you!”
The darkened climbed onto the stage. Thayer scaled one of the speaker towers, still clutching a dead megaphone. “Get to the airports!” she shouted into the crowd. “Pacifica can save you. Get to the airports to receive the vaccine!”
The speaker tower creaked, listing for a sickening moment, before it crashed into the mob. Thayer leapt off and landed on the stage. Then she stopped in her tracks. “Asha!”
Asha was in front of the stage. She looked pale, staring up at Thayer.
Thayer ran to the front of the stage and reached down. “Come with me, Asha!”
Asha shook her head and stepped backward. The tornado melted away. A dark cloud swirled above her.
“I won’t let them take you,” Thayer shouted, leaning farther over. “I can save you, Asha. Come with me!”
Claire grabbed Asha and pulled her away. “We’re getting out of here.”
The world around Jack shrunk into a pinhole. Then the feeling of being sucked through a tube. Finally, Jack staggered out of the Dome and landed on the grass. The amphitheater roared to life at their reappearance. It was now full of instructors, recruits, and cadets.
Darius yanked Jack to his feet. Her face hovered inches above his. “What happened in there?” she shouted. “Where were you?”
“Washington, DC,” Jack gasped. “A rally near the White House. Pacifica Institute was there. And Wyeth. The Rogue Team stopped us from reaching him. The whole crowd is infected.”
Darius didn’t let him continue. She touched her ear. “All operatives to DC, Portal 4960,” Darius barked. “Send everyone.”
Behind her, Bakari frantically tapped and swiped and waved at the Dome console. “Impossible!” he cursed. “Where is the recording?”
Superior Blue stepped forward. “What did you see?”
“One of the guys on the Rogue Team,” Voss answered, “had a spade like a localized propulsion.”
The Superior turned to Alexander. “Get everyone you can find into the archives, including the files classified as special operations. If someone doesn’t have access, give it to them. Search for operatives killed in action in the last five years. The Rogue Team may have faked their deaths, planning for this. We have to consider all possibilities.” Alexander left to get others started on the database.
Jack looked down to find Asha on the ground, holding her ankle. “Asha?” Jack asked.
“That woman, Cynthia Thayer,” Freddy said, bewildered. “She knew you.”
Lady buzzed around Asha’s ankle.
Voss moved Freddy out of the way. “She’s in pain, man.” He eased her up. “I’m taking her to the clinic. Come on, Lady.” Lady flew next to them as Voss carried Asha.
Darius shouted orders into her monitor. “I don’t care what you think. I care about what you know.” She listened for a moment. “Yes. Understood.”
Darius looked at Blue. Jack had never seen that expression on her
face before. “They’re gone.”
Superior Blue rubbed his temple.
“Who’s gone?” Freddy asked, glancing between them.
“The operatives,” Claire answered quietly. “The team that was sent to the rally when the map sounded the reaper alarm. They must have been darkened, right?”
“They were ambushed by the Rogue Team,” Superior Blue said, his voice flat.
“If we hadn’t been extracted, we would have been overrun too,” Jack said. “We saw what the operatives saw. We were fighting that Rogue Team. You can’t fight operatives and the darkened at the same time.”
“Everyone will go to the airports,” Freddy said.
Darius and Blue turned to Freddy. “What are you talking about? Why?” Darius asked.
“The rally was for the Pacifica Institute,” Freddy told them. “Their leader is Cynthia Thayer; we’ve seen her before on the cube. She was talking about the Dark Virus and how the government was killing its own people. She told the crowd that Pacifica could save everyone if they went to the airports.”
Blue and Darius looked at each other. They knew something. Darius touched her ear again. “Get surveillance up on Reagan National Airport. And find out what in the world the Pacifica Institute is.”
CHAPTER 23
THE ASYLUM
Underground in the Bunker, the Office of Reaper Engagement was dark and tight. From black padded benches, Jack, Claire, and Freddy watched surveillance footage of the rally on a hologram. The operator sped through the setup of the stage, the gathering crowd, and the beginning of Thayer’s speech. Then everything went dark.
“That’s when Wyeth darkened that civilian in the baseball cap,” Freddy said. “The power went off. Speakers, lights, everything.”
“That’s his signature,” Blue confirmed. “That’s the dead zone. You were inside it.”
“I heard him,” Jack told them. “I heard his voice in my head again.”
Superior Blue looked at Jack. “What did he say?”
“That I was on the wrong side of history. That I couldn’t stop him.”
“That was the Dome. It wasn’t actually Wyeth,” Freddy pointed out.
“It sure felt like him.”
Alexander entered, his expression somber. “They asked me to inform you, sir. It’s been confirmed,” he said. “We’ve lost contact with all four operatives. They must have been darkened at the DC rally. None of them were extracted. It seems they were ambushed by the Rogue Team, then overwhelmed by the darkened.”
Blue’s jaw tightened. “You have their files for me?”
“On your band now, sir.”
Blue tapped his band. Jack watched as Blue flipped through the dossiers of four different operatives. It was hard to look at their photos, knowing what they must have gone through.
“You said you were hit with a propulsion of some kind, Jack,” Blue said.
“It felt like getting punched in the chest,” he confirmed. “Alexander’s blast suit protected me.”
“One of the operatives we sent in had that spade,” Blue said. “Which means the Expathic on the Rogue Team must have a mimic spade. I’ll examine the archives myself to see if I can identify an operative with that ability. Edison, give me a hand in the archives, will you?”
As Blue and Alexander left the room, Freddy pointed at one of the cube screens. “She’s back.”
A close-up showed Cynthia Thayer, her face scratched and bruised, her eyes hard. She was standing in front of a banner of the Pacifica Institute. “Pacifica has been preparing for this moment. We have established a safe zone at Reagan Airport. If you are in DC, make your way to the airport, and you will be safe. Do not heed government warnings. If you stay in the city, you will be infected.”
“What’s at the airport? How are they doing all this?” Jack asked, confused. “I thought Pacifica was a research institute.”
“She seemed to know all this would happen. How were they ready for it?” Freddy asked. Claire just shook her head, staring at the screen. They turned when Lady buzzed in. Asha followed, walking with only a slight limp and wearing a brace around her ankle. Voss came in last.
“Hey, how you feeling?” Jack asked, getting up.
“Dr. Horn mended my ankle. It was broken,” she said. “It’ll be fine tomorrow.” Asha’s gaze drifted to the screen, to Cynthia Thayer speaking.
Freddy watched her reaction. “That woman, Asha. She knew you.”
Asha eased herself down into a chair and took a deep breath. “She should. She’s my mother.”
“The Pacifica Institute isn’t a research facility,” Asha told them. “It’s a prison. My mother was an inmate there. That’s where I was born.”
Asha smiled grimly. “I didn’t know it was a prison until I was older. There were no cages or anything. My mom used to tell me we never went on trips because we had everything we needed right there on that beautiful tropical island. She said that we lived in paradise, so why would we ever leave? I believed her.” Asha rubbed the brace covering her ankle. She didn’t look up at them.
“My mom and a handful of others, they were kept separate. We got ‘special treatment,’ my mom used to tell me. Pacifica was a whole community of maybe 150 inmates of all ages, from teenagers on up. The only time we were allowed together with the other inmates was for meals, in this spectacular cafeteria overlooking the ocean.”
“I’ve never heard of any prison like that,” Claire said.
“Me neither. The first time I ever had access to the Internet was here at Hadley. I spent all night looking for any information about Pacifica. There’s no record of it.” Asha swallowed hard.
“My mom met my dad, Omar Hassan, at Pacifica. My mother told me he was a marine and that he was killed in Afghanistan before I was born. But as I got older I questioned that, since nobody was ever allowed off the island,” Asha said. “Nobody ever told me what happened to him.”
She glanced up at Voss. “I guess I just wanted to believe that lie about him. And there was something very wrong with my mother.”
“Did she hurt you?” Voss asked.
Asha shook her head. “No, but the people who ran Pacifica feared her. I could tell. It’s why they kept her confined. She told me she preferred to be in her room. It had an entire open wall overlooking the ocean,” she said. “I could leave that room whenever I wanted, though. I used to hang out in the metal shop with the mechanics who worked on the generators that powered the island. I learned how to build boats down at the dock with the mariners.”
“Why were the others afraid of her?” Jack asked.
“I’m not exactly sure, but she was brilliant,” Asha said. “When she did go to the cafeteria, she gave these fiery speeches to the other inmates. She would tell them that they, the ones at Pacifica, had been betrayed. That they were the only sane ones, the only ones who saw the truth.”
“What truth?” Freddy asked.
Asha paused. “That reapers were real.”
Jack rattled his head. “Wait—what?”
“That’s what she said. Reapers,” Asha said. “And the entire place would go crazy. Not just the ones they kept in solitary confinement like my mom, but everyone. They all believed her. They believed in these monsters that appeared out of nowhere, that killed people.”
“She knew about reapers?” Voss asked.
“They all did,” Asha said. “I thought they were crazy. But now, I wonder what they knew.” Asha spoke through her fingers as she bit her nails. “How much they knew.”
“So you ran away,” Freddy said. “How did you get off the island?”
Asha pulled her fingers out of her mouth. “Sorry. I didn’t know that was a gross habit until I met you guys.”
She tucked her hand under her thigh self-consciously. “The mariners were building this super-fast boat—narrow hull, carbon fiber and Kevlar, jet engine. They let me work on it with them. I stole the boat and headed straight for the mainland. I didn’t know what I was going to do when I got
there. I hadn’t brought anything with me.” Asha paused, recalling the memory. “But then there he was—a Hadley operative, waiting right there on the dock. I was still in a daze from escaping. Next thing I knew we were going through the portal to Elk Island and I was meeting you guys.”
Asha had been talking into her lap without making eye contact with the others. But now she looked up. “The night before I left, my mother told me she was starting a revolution. That’s why I ran.”
Freddy leaned forward in his chair. “Asha, your mother and the other inmates at Pacifica, how do you think they found out about reapers?”
“They didn’t find out.” Superior Blue stood in the doorway. “They remembered.”
Superior Blue walked to the hologram terminal and entered a long code. The images of Thayer were replaced with the words Highly Classified outlined in red. Then a series of mug shots populated the screen.
“Your mother and the rest of the community—they named their institution Pacifica. But we have a different name for it.”
He walked up to the hologram and pointed out a photo of a thirteen-year-old Cynthia Thayer, same eyes and expression. He looked back at Asha.
“Your mother is the Viral that Wyeth recruited to create the Dark Virus,” he told her. “And Pacifica isn’t a prison. Pacifica is the Hadley Asylum. And their revolution has only just begun.”
CHAPTER 24
She reached into her pack and pulled out a cube, then spun it between her fingers. “We need to see this.”
CONFESSIONS
Team Thirteen was surrounded by three dozen ferocious dogs, growling and snapping from only a few feet away.
“Pull your halcyon glove from your pack,” Sushila Patel shouted over the barking. Her voice echoed around the concrete walls of the large open room. “Quickly, before the dogs attack.”
The Hadley Academy for the Improbably Gifted Page 20