Everybody stopped.
“What if this isn’t a simulation?” Freddy repeated. “What if this is real?”
“He’s losing his mind,” said Asha, awed.
“We’ve been through this before,” Voss said. “We’ve been in the Dome before. You gotta get a hold of yourself, man.”
“We walked into the Dome eighteen minutes ago, remember?” Jack asked as gently as he could over the wind and rain. “This isn’t real.” Jack could see the others glancing at each other. Would they need to overpower Freddy to get this done?
“Our door was different,” Freddy said. “Remember what the Bulgarian told Jack? He invented an instant portal. He said the original was in the Requisition building. When Alexander made our door, he just had to change out the Corpus Christi portal chip for a Dome chip.” He turned to Jack. “You saw the Bulgarian’s portal. What size was it?”
“Like a thin deck of cards.”
“The same size as the chip that Alexander pulled out of the Corpus Christi door,” Freddy confirmed. “Don’t you see? Somebody installed the instant portal prototype into our door. Our door is an instant portal!”
Jack shook his head, bewildered. “But that would mean . . .”
“We’ve been going through a portal every time we went into the Dome,” Freddy finished. “These haven’t been simulations. They’ve been real. We’ve been living out actual engagements!”
“But . . . why?” Asha asked.
“Because nobody would suspect us,” Freddy said, working through it.
“One minute left,” said Voss.
“Freddy, what are you talking about?” Claire whispered.
“We are the Rogue Team!” Freddy shouted into the wind. “Us! Team Thirteen! We’ve been the Rogue Team all along.” Freddy looked like a wild man predicting the apocalypse on a street corner. His hands extended toward them, as if to pull them in, to see what he saw.
“In the cathedral, the team we fought—that wasn’t the Rogue Team. That was the team of operatives,” he said. “Same thing at the rally. Nobody could tell who we were because we had our hoods up. And who’s expecting to see a team of recruits appearing out of nowhere? But we ambushed them, not the other way around. We were protecting Wyeth, not them!”
“But somebody would have had to install that instant portal,” Voss pointed out. “Somebody at Hadley had to set all this up.” For a moment nobody spoke. The rain pounded the boat.
“The dragons have been trying to get into Hadley,” Freddy said more quietly.
“Yeah?” Voss asked.
“The dragons were trained to hunt down Wyeth.”
Their bands beeped. Twenty minutes was up. They hadn’t been extracted.
“This wasn’t a simulation.” Freddy was the only one with words. “The Dome has never summoned us. Wyeth installed the instant portal and triggered our bands. Only Wyeth would know where the dead zones would happen. He summoned us into the cathedral in Brussels and to the rally in DC. We ambushed the team of operatives that were already there. We were extracted while the other operatives stayed and fought to the death.”
The full extent of everything they had done began to sink in.
The boat lurched. Asha was thrown to the side and Voss caught her. The wind was picking up. Then the boat hit a colossal wave that knocked them off their feet and almost clean off the boat. They slid together down the deck.
“Now what?” Voss asked, panting and gripping a rope.
Asha patted the deck. “We find out if this thing is as hard to sink as I hope it is.”
CHAPTER 30
“We have no chance of survival if we go in there. But we’re going anyway.”
HURRICANE
The storm got worse before it got better.
For hours they frantically trimmed sails and clung to wet ropes, all at Asha’s shouted instructions. Wave after wave hit, and the forty-foot vessel crested each mound of water with a sickening roller-coaster motion, a rhythm of nausea.
Then the rhythm broke as the stern skidded down a wave and they lurched sideways. Another wave smashed onto the deck and the boat twisted. Claire lost her grip and slid down the deck. Just before she tumbled over the side, she snatched at a cable and swung herself back up. Somehow the boat recovered, and they returned to the sickening up-and-down dance.
Jack forgot about Wyeth. He forgot about the Rogue Team. He thought only of thirst, of the taste of salt in his mouth, of wiping his eyes with a soggy sleeve only to get drenched again. He thought of staring up into the clouds and then down into the trench of a wave. He thought of nausea and torn hands and survival.
Then it was over.
Jack sank to his knees and lay out flat on the deck. The smooth wood felt almost dry compared to his drenched clothes.
Jack replayed Freddy’s revelation again and again. He thought about every interaction he had at Hadley. Wyeth had somehow installed the instant portal. But how? It seemed impossible.
Voss shook him. He had been falling asleep. His arms and legs tingled with numbness.
“You’re gonna freeze out here, man,” Voss said. “Come on, we’re going back into the cabin. Maybe we can find some dry clothes.”
Jack pushed himself up. Voss went over and lifted Asha to her feet and helped her downstairs. Freddy stood over Claire, holding out his hand to help her up. She instinctively waved it off and pushed herself partway up. “We’re a team, Claire,” Freddy said, his hand still extended. “You can trust me. Take my hand.”
“I’m still getting used to it,” Claire said.
“I get that. I’ve got time.” Freddy plopped down, legs crossed, his hand still extended. “You just let me know. No rush.”
Claire gave a reluctant smile. Then she rose to her feet and reached down and gripped Freddy’s hand. She pulled him up. Freddy yelped when their skin touched. “Can’t you turn that off?”
“Can you turn off your constant crazy talk?” she countered.
“Hmm. No, I guess not. But my crazy talk just saved our lives.”
“Give it time, Sanchez,” Claire said. “I’ll save your life sooner or later.”
Downstairs, they found an LED camping light in a cabinet, and soon the cabin was bathed in a pale glow. On the ground, unconscious in a gray hoodie and torn camouflage pants, lay the Bulgarian.
Voss went over and felt his forehead. “You hit him too hard.”
“It’s exhaustion,” Jack said. “He could barely stand even before we hit him. I think he’s been out on this boat for a couple of days.”
The Bulgarian’s eyelids fluttered, but he wasn’t really there. Voss pulled him up to a seated position. His head fell forward. They peeled off his sweatshirt to find a bloodstained shirt underneath. Dark purple masses covered his ribs. One of his ankles was grotesquely swollen.
Together they lifted him onto the only bed. At least he was dry. Asha found a freezer with ice packs and set them on his raised ankle. He was breathing deeply, unconscious.
Freddy dug out a kerosene heater, Claire sparked it to life, and the small cabin warmed quickly. Voss ripped the padlock off a locker where he found a pile of musty fisherman garb and several blankets.
Once they were in dry clothes, they slid into the benches attached to a narrow, built-in table. Jack studied the navigation charts while Asha checked the GPS equipment. They were a hundred miles south of Elk Island.
The boat was stocked with tinned food and fresh water. Freddy made chicken soup in a saucepan on the hot plate while they sipped scalding tea. Jack and Asha estimated they would have two full days of sailing ahead to get back to the Hadley Academy.
“We can’t go back to Elk Island,” Jack said. He had been thinking about this as he had fallen asleep up on the deck. Now he knew what they would have to do. “There’s tons of intel on this boat. We can figure out where Pacifica is based. Wyeth will be there too. We have to attack them. This may be our only chance.”
“You wanna attack them? The five of us?” Voss ask
ed, impressed. “Man, I underestimated you, Carlson. Count me in.”
“Me too,” Asha said.
“You’re the Guardian,” Freddy added. “We can’t lose.”
Voss rolled his eyes. “Might wanna pump the brakes on that ‘the man, the myth, the legend’ junk, bro.”
“I’m in,” Claire said. “You’re the president of the Cartography Club, Jack. Time to put that to use.”
Jack wore a thick woolen sweater as he looked out over the bow toward the horizon. Asha steered while the others rested. They were heading toward the coast and gradually south, still unsure what their target destination was. They hadn’t been able to discern Pacifica’s headquarters from any of the papers in the cabin. Voss, Claire, and Freddy slept below, sitting upright on the benches and leaning into each other. The Bulgarian was still unconscious on the bed.
Jack went back into the cabin and peered at the maps, news story printouts, and photos laid out on the table. He examined and reexamined everything. The Dark Virus had changed the power structure in the United States. Nobody knew whom to trust. People only knew that Pacifica could protect them, and that they had access to what everyone believed was a life-saving vaccine.
Jack’s vision was starting to blur. He needed a break. He stretched and rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand. Then he flipped to one more file.
And there it was, staring at him. A Pacifica memo.
RE: Central Command
Confirmed: Security contingent to New York City. Second and Sixth Battalions to forward position. Darkened must be eliminated or controlled in a three-block radius of Times Square to allow troop movement.
Jack grabbed the paper and ran up on the deck. The sky had begun to lighten, diluting the black to a rich blue. The horizon, without a cloud to catch the rays, glowed yellow-orange.
Jack held the paper out to Asha. “We’re going to New York City.”
Asha took it and gave him a skeptical look. “New York City is heavily infested with the darkened. It’d be suicide, going into that.”
“Exactly. That’s why Pacifica moved their central command to Times Square. The city’s darkened population is their fortress.”
“But wouldn’t they be overrun too?” Asha asked.
“Wyeth controls the darkened,” Jack said. “He will protect Pacifica.” Jack tapped the memo. “Wyeth will be there. Your mother too. That’s where we need to go.”
Asha stared out over the water, toward the brightening sky.
“You think you can do this?” Jack asked.
After a long silence she turned back to him. “I have to. I can’t run from her.”
Freddy popped his head out of the cabin and squinted toward the horizon, shielding his eyes with his hand. In his other hand he gripped the handles of three tin mugs, the smell of strong black coffee wafting from them. He handed one to Asha and one to Jack.
“Where are we headed?”
“New York City,” Asha said.
“Right. I was thinking that’s probably where Pacifica made its new headquarters.” Freddy paused. “Of course, it’s a suicide mission, going in there. We sure we want to do that, Asha?”
“Ask your friend.”
Freddy looked at Jack. “It will be swarming with darkened.”
“Wyeth is there, Freddy. I can feel it.”
“Then it’s settled. As good a place as any to go down fighting.”
Voss and Claire came up too. “What are you dummies talking about?” Voss asked.
Freddy had lain down using a coil of ropes for a pillow and closed his eyes. He nodded toward Jack. “Just that Jack’s Wyeth-detection system is tingling. Wyeth is with Pacifica, based in New York City, overrun by the darkened. And we have no chance of survival if we go in there. But we’re going anyway.”
Voss paused to consider that for a minute. “Yeah, alright.” He shrugged. “We already survived almost blowing ourselves up and a hurricane.”
“I was thinking about that, actually.” Freddy craned his neck to look at Jack. “You actually would have survived the explosion, right? Because you have that blast suit. It’s like you have a fairy godmother protecting you.”
“A fairy godmother that would have blasted me out to sea with a bunch of boat shards and dead friends,” Jack clarified. “Some lousy fairy godmother.”
Voss lay down on the dry deck near Freddy. Claire sat and faced the sun for a long while with her eyes closed, soaking it in. Jack leaned against the boat’s side.
And that’s how they passed that first morning. Cracked lips tasting of sea salt, aching muscles, heavy eyelids. But alive. And together.
The Bulgarian woke up only rarely. When he did, whoever was with him tried to make sure he drank water before he passed back out. Their clothes were dry, and the sea was calm. They napped in shifts.
As the sun set over the western horizon, Voss burst into the cabin where Freddy and Jack were sleeping on the benches. They both leapt up, banging their legs against the low table.
“You two need to get up on deck,” Voss said.
It was dark out except for a halogen lamp that cast a glow on the others. The sky was perfectly clear with only a light wind, just enough to keep them moving north.
“Static, can you make that come through any clearer?” Asha asked. Claire held the antenna of the marine radio and did whatever she did with electrons. Voices, chopped and gruff, came through the static.
Freddy leaned closer. “That doesn’t sound like boaters talking about the weather. It sounds like military talk.”
“It is military talk.” Claire adjusted her grip on the antenna. They were only getting clipped phrases. But two words came through clearly: Pacifica and navy.
“Pacifica has their own navy?” Jack asked in disbelief.
“They don’t have their own navy,” Claire corrected. “They’ve taken over the US Navy.”
The radio crackled and a few more words came through. “Pacifica ain’t fighting the government anymore,” Voss said. “They are the government. Our military is trying to protect people, and right now, Pacifica seems like the good guys.”
Claire pointed west, toward land. “That’s not the United States anymore. That’s the Republic of Pacifica, under Commander Cynthia Thayer.”
They kept the radio on throughout the night and all through the next day, but they picked up little else. Before dusk, off in the distance, Jack spotted it: the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor.
They pulled into a marina among the towering skyscrapers of the financial district, waiting to be spotted. But nobody was there.
Voss jumped off as soon as the boat was close enough to the dock. He pulled the boat in and tied it off. “Where is everyone?”
“I guess the darkened don’t have much interest in boating,” Freddy offered.
Voss stared north up a broad empty avenue. He turned to the others. “To Times Square?”
Jack could feel Wyeth, but he didn’t want to say it. He just wanted to end this. And he would—no matter what it cost him. “To Times Square,” Jack answered.
“Wyeth won’t have a Rogue Team anymore,” Asha pointed out.
“No, just a few hundred thousand darkened.” Freddy frowned.
“We can’t kill that many,” Voss said.
“I think they’re already dead,” Freddy told him. “Their souls are slaves to the Shadow now. You must have seen their black eyes up close. It’s scary, that tortured look. Blazing them is a second death. It’s a mercy to set those souls free.”
“What are you, a darkened rights activist?” Voss asked. “Who cares what they feel? They’re trying to kill us! I’m more worried about them ending us before we can free their souls from bondage.”
Asha unzipped her pack, and Lady buzzed out. “She can at least give us a heads-up about what’s around the corners,” Asha said. Lady turned and bobbed ahead.
“What about him?” Voss pointed back toward the boat. The Bulgarian was still sleeping in its hull.
&nb
sp; “We leave him here,” Jack said. “He’s too weak to move. If we live through this, though, we come back for him. Agreed?”
CHAPTER 31
LAST STAND
The streets of Manhattan felt like a forgotten movie set. In the six weeks since the DC Massacre, the world had been transformed. They didn’t see a soul on the entire walk to Times Square. Lady flew about fifty feet ahead of them as a sentry. But not once did the drone come back to warn them.
To the north, two abandoned fire trucks blocked what had been the downtown flow of traffic. Obstructing another street was a construction site, a naked building of rust-colored beams stacked like Lincoln Logs. Huge, multistory advertising screens remained dark in the complete blackout.
“How are we supposed to find Pacifica?” Voss asked. “They could be anywhere within a seven-block radius, and all of these buildings are enormous.”
Lady came zipping back. She skidded to a halt a few feet above them, spinning and indicating the way she had come with a little metal arm that popped out of her shell. She beeped rapidly.
Walking out of a side street was a young woman wobbling as if using her legs for the first time. In the silence they could hear her skin crackling. She walked to the middle of the street and faced them.
Asha drew her rune blade. The blaze shone gray. Voss held his hand out. “Careful. There might be more.”
“There are more,” Jack said. “They’re coming.” His mind was filling up like a kiddie pool overflowing when the hose was left on too long. White noise surged in his brain. A sickening dread grew in him.
“It’s a trap.” Claire pulled out her blade. “Wyeth has walked us right into a pit of darkened.”
Freddy and Voss did the same, unleashing blue and green blazes. Freddy nodded at the hilt on Jack’s hip. “Time to try that thing out, buddy.”
Jack wiped a sweaty palm on his thigh and reached for the Silo Blade. It sprung off his hip and slapped into his palm. The leather was warm, as if it were a living thing. The blade leapt to life before Jack could even think it. The blaze was pitch black.
The Hadley Academy for the Improbably Gifted Page 26