“Look at the suit on the left-hand mannequin,” Dreyer says into our ears. I start to tell her the one on the left isn’t wearing anything—then I catch a telltale shimmer on the edge of my vision.
“Damn. It’s nano-tech. Looks similar to what Grace was wearing when I found her.” Clearly UA sold some version of this technology to Meshach. Along with Grace. Though I still don’t understand how the two are connected.
I holster my own weapon and move to examine the left-hand figure. “I can hardly see it, but it feels… Zamora’s right. It’s flexible. Supple, but strong.”
“Pretty sure that’s what the late Dr. Louis Thompson was wearing when he died,” Lawrence says into our ears. “Maybe trying out the goods for himself?”
“What good could this armor be, if it didn’t save him?” Sotelo demands, scowling at the center mannequin.
“He was a scientist, not a soldier,” Dreyer points out. “And he was set upon by an entire Bureau raid team. I’m guessing nothing would have kept Dr. Thompson alive in a firefight.”
“Fair point.” I lift the center mannequin’s arm, to get a feel for how the material moves, and some interesting stitching on the underside of the sleeve catches my eye. “Holy shit. Sotelo, look.”
“What is it?” Dreyer asks.
Sotelo frowns at the stitching. “Is that what I think it is?”
“What?” Dreyer demands again. “I can’t make that out through the camera. What do you think it is?”
“Seams,” Sotelo tells her. “Exactly where our bone blades would emerge.”
“They’re on the elbows and knuckles too.” Zamora extends the arm of the right-hand mannequin toward us, to show us the built-in gloves. Where, in fact, an X-shaped stitching pattern covers each of the knuckles at the top of the mannequin’s hands. I bend the center figure’s arm and find a larger version of that X covering his elbow.
“These were designed for us.” I shrug up at the camera. “Well, probably not for us specifically, but for the standard-issue super-soldiers UA is obviously planning to manufacture en masse, now that their prototypes—” Us. “—have proven successful.”
Sotelo scowls around at the room. “So then, Theron Laboratories Inc seems to have been intended to directly support the efforts going on in zone X.” Where we were turned into monsters. Where several previous generations of experimental alien-hybrid soldiers perished, before our generation finally succeeded.
I glance around the room, trying to make sense of what I’m seeing and hearing. “What does any of this have to do with Grace and with whatever happened to her here?”
“I’m not sure yet,” Dreyer says into our earpieces. “But according to the blueprint, that long wall at the back of the room you’re in is actually more of a…closet. Go check it out.”
Zamora and I draw our weapons, backing Sotelo up just in case as he heads for the wall. “She’s right. These panels open.” Gun drawn, he presses on the wall with his free hand. A panel pops open, then slides back to reveal a hanging rack full of the nano-tech battle gear, in a range of sizes. And what appeared to be one-piece armor on the mannequins turns out to actually be several pieces that evidently fit together seamlessly, for easy donning.
“Holy shit.” Zamora touches another spot on the wall, and a second panel opens. As it slides back, light glows from the top of the closet, illuminating at least a dozen full sets of armor, divided into tops and bottoms, with gloves and boots lined up along the floor of the hidden cavity. “Well, if they’re meant for us, I say we try them on.”
“Later.” Sotelo closes the panel he just opened. “Let’s find out who’s upstairs before we start trying on battle gear we don’t know how to operate.”
“Why do you think they didn’t destroy this stuff?” Zamora asks as he closes the second panel.
“Because this tech isn’t illegal?” I guess. “Thus, it’s not incriminating.”
“Okay, moving on,” Dreyer says into our ears. “Looks like the elevator has been turned off, but there’s a stairwell through the door at the end of the hall. The guy you’re looking for is still on the second floor.”
“What can you tell us about him?” I ask as we move into the hall again.
“He looks…out of place,” Dreyer says. “Unarmed. Definitely not a member of security. He’s not wearing a lab coat or anything, either, and the way he’s searching the lab suggests that he’s not familiar enough with it to be a scientist, or anyone who regularly works there.”
“So who the hell is he?” Zamora asks as Sotelo leads us into another concrete stairwell.
“I have no idea. Though…he seems to be wearing some kind of one-piece uniform. Maybe a flight suit?”
“We’ll find out in a second,” Sotelo growls. “Everyone shut up.”
Silence descends over the connection as Zamora and I follow him up the stairs, and for a second, the familiarity of the mission—sneaking up a back stairwell after a target, guns drawn—puts me right back there. In the war.
No one gets nostalgic for battle, but being out here with my squad again? Doing what we’re good at?
“Feels like old times,” Zamora whispers, echoing my thoughts.
“Shut. Up,” Sotelo growls softly.
I snort. “Now it feels like old times.”
“Fuck all of you bastards for sidelining me,” Dreyer snaps.
“That isn’t about ovaries,” Lawrence insists. “My balls and I are right here with you.”
“And my balls are at the ship’s controls,” Jamison pipes up.
“I’m opening the door,” Sotelo growls. “So shut the fuck up.”
So we rein it in. Just like we used to.
Sotelo eases the door open and moves quietly into the space at the top of the stairs, rolling his feet with each step so that his boots are silent on the floor. I take up a position on his right as I emerge from the stairwell, and Zamora moves to his left.
We’re in a hallway. To our left is an elevator designed for human occupancy, but large enough for freight. The doors are open, but the compartment is dark. Dreyer’s right. It’s been turned off.
The two nearest doors are open, and the rooms beyond have been destroyed. Smashed equipment litters the floor. Chairs are overturned and broken. The lingering scent of smoke says that something was recently torched.
The crash of breaking glass echoes from down the hall, followed by a series of shouted expletives.
“That’s your guy,” Dreyer whispers into our ears. “Third door on the left.”
Sotelo takes point, and Zamora and I follow him into the room. It’s another lab, and standing in the middle of it with his back to us is a man in a baggy one-piece uniform. He’s holding a screwdriver, staring at a lockbox built in beneath one of the cabinets.
This man is not a pilot. He’s a janitor.
Sotelo clears his throat.
The man spins around, eyes wide with surprise, to reveal several days’ worth of beard scruff. “Who the fuck are you?”
“The men with the guns get to ask the questions,” I explain as I squint at the name patch sewn onto his uniform. “Mr. Larimore.”
He blinks. “That seems fair.” Then his gaze drops to our clothing, skipping from Sotelo to Zamora, then to me. “You’re not Bureau or UA. That’s all that matters.”
“Agreed,” Zamora says. “What the hell happened here?”
“Bureau raid.” Larimore slowly extends his right arm and sets the screwdriver on the nearest counter. “The scientists panicked and started trashing everything. Data. Projects. Even some of the equipment.”
Sotelo was right.
“What were they working on here?” I ask.
Larimore shrugs. “I just take out the trash.” But janitor or not, he clearly knows more than he’s letting on. “Who did you guys say you are?”
“We didn’t.” Sotelo rounds a countertop littered with broken glass. More of it crunches beneath his boots. “Where is everyone? Were they all arrested?”
“Some of ‘em. Others got in their shuttles and took off, figuring the Bureau couldn’t chase them all.” He shrugs. “They were right.”
“Why are you still here?”
“Because those elitist scientist fucks didn’t make room in their ships for the custodial staff. Which means that most of the people the bureau took into custody actually know fuck all about what went on here. Myself included.”
“You’re not in custody,” I point out.
Another shrug from Larimore. “Those Bureau bastards read us our rights, then they used us as free labor, loading ‘evidence’ on their transport. I snuck out and hid, and there were so many of us that they didn’t notice one missing.”
Is it possible they also didn’t notice a missing piece of evidence?
“We’re looking for a misplaced crate,” Sotelo says, clearly thinking the same thing. “Item number—”
Larimore shakes his head. “I don’t know anything about a crate. I loaded what they told me to load, then I snuck off to hide. If the Bureau sent you looking for something they lost, that’s on them. You’re not going to find it here.”
But he’s lying. Again. That’s clear from the nervous way his gaze flits from Sotelo to Zamora, then back to me. And before we beat that information out of him, I have one more question.
“Are you alone here?”
“I already told you there’s no one else here,” Dreyer says into my ear. But if Larimore could hide from the Bureau, someone else could be hiding from us, somehow shielded from Theron’s infrared and brain wave scanning software.
“Are any of the scientists still here?” I continue. “Or maybe a doctor?”
“No. Everyone else ran or got arrested.” His focus narrows on me, though he’s careful to keep his hands in view, while we’re still aiming weapons at him. “You looking for someone in particular? Or you just need a doctor?”
I don’t bother answering, because the less he knows about us, the better.
“I’m not a doctor, but I can point you to the infirmary. There’s a lot of automated equipment in there, and I happen to know it’s still intact.” He holds up his left arm to display a long gash on the top side, perfectly stitched up, but still swollen and red. “I got into a tussle with a broken display case, and the medpod patched me up as good as any human doctor could have.”
“Though you might want to consider a round of antibiotics,” Zamora says with a glance at Larimore’s puffy skin. Then he turns to me, but his question is clearly aimed at Dreyer. “Any idea where this infirmary is located? That might be worth a shot.”
“It certainly will be.” I holster my weapon and turn to Sotelo. “You two good here?”
He nods. “Go take care of your girl. We got this.”
I spin and race into the hallway. “Dreyer, I’m headed back to the Dinghy for Grace. I’m gonna need directions to that infirmary.”
18
GRACE
LIGHT SHINES behind my closed eyelids, and pain settles deep beneath my skull. I groan, and when I try to rub my forehead, my hand slams into something, bruising my knuckles. My eyes fly open, and in the second it takes for my vision to come into focus, I realize I’m staring up at the inside of a box. A sleek, smooth, white box with a weirdly glowing interior.
I press my palms against the surface enclosing me and push, trying to open it. When the top of the box refuses to budge, I run my palms along it, which is when I realize the surface is curved around me.
This isn’t a box. It’s a pod. It’s something similar to the cryopod I was shipped to Gebose in.
No! I can’t be going back there. I can’t. How did I wind up in this thing? The last thing I remember is…Vaughn. The Dinghy and its crew. They would never send me back to Gebose. They would never put me in a cryopod.
So what happened? Were we attacked? Did Meshach find me?
Wait. If this is a cryopod, why am I awake? Has there been a malfunction?
“Help!” I scream, despite the fear telling me that if I’m in Meshach’s hands, screaming won’t do me any good.
“She’s awake!” Vaughn’s voice rumbles through me. “Get this damn thing open before she freaks out.”
“It’s a little late for that,” Lilli says from somewhere nearby. Yet just hearing Vaughn’s voice has made my pulse slow toward a normal rhythm. Just knowing he’s near has—
I think I can smell him, even locked in here. And he smells amazing. Like sex, if sex were something edible. Which I guess it kind of is.
Suddenly the top of the pod swings open on hinges to my left and Vaughn’s face replaces the backlit, curved panel. He takes up my entire field of vision. I reach for him, and he scoops me up, clutching me to his chest so tightly I can hardly breathe. And I couldn’t care less. Who needs oxygen when I have these arms? This chest? This scent, which makes me want to officially register my place of residence as in this embrace.
Has he always smelled so good?
“Ease up, Vaughn,” Lilli says. “You’re going to crush her. Besides, she’s still hooked up to…things.”
“What?” I mumble, my face pressed into Vaughn’s shirt. Only it doesn’t feel like the shirt he was wearing the last time I saw him. Beneath this weirdly supple new clothing, I can still feel his granite pecs. I can even hear his heartbeat. And as I listen, it slows to match the rhythm of my own.
“Put her down, dumbass,” Dreyer says, but I can hear the smile in her voice. “We’re all glad Grace is awake, but you have to let the machine finish what it was doing.”
Machine?
Vaughn loosens his grip until I can look up at him. His brows are drawn into a worried frown as he studies me face, his golden eyes glowing. Like, really glowing. “I’m going to put you back down for a minute, and I have to close the lid again,” he says. “But I’ll be right here. And as soon as this thing is done examining you, I’ll get you out. Okay?”
I have no idea what he’s talking about. “What’s going on?”
“You passed out.” Lilli steps into view. “Two days ago. We couldn’t find a doctor for you, but we did find Theron, and it turns out they have these badass medical pods.”
“Zamora and Lawrence have already loaded two more of them into the cargo bay of the Dinghy,” Dreyer says, though I still can’t see her around Vaughn’s massively muscled arm, in its weird, steel-gray sleeve. “We figure UA owes us whatever we want to take, and it doesn’t look like there’s anyone left here to notice them missing.”
“We’re on Theron?” Yet we’re definitely not at the convent. The sisters don’t have tech like this.
Wait, there is no convent. Right?
“We’re not so much on Theron as at Theron,” Lilli says, and I twist in Vaughn’s arms to see her lift herself onto a nearby countertop, staring at the com device strapped to her wrist. “Let Coleman put you back in the pod, and we’ll explain while it finishes doing its thing.”
“I don’t need to be treated. I’m fine.”
“You are now.” Vaughn says. “Because that machine told us you were dehydrated and low on electrolytes, and it pumped everything you need into your arm.” His voice rumbles through me, resonating in the pit of my stomach before it slithers lower. I press my thighs together, where they’re slung over his right arm. His nostrils flare for a second, and he smiles. He’s scenting my arousal. Which feels very inappropriate, while Lilli and Dreyer are both watching us. But I can’t help it.
He smells so good. And his voice is like some kind of auditory aphrodisiac. Which is probably why I’m just now noticing that I’m wearing a hospital gown. And that there’s a tube sticking out of my arm. “What’s this?” I reach for it, and Dreyer catches my hand.
“You’re being hydrated intravenously,” she explains. “But if you’ll let Coleman put you back in the pod, we can have it remove that, and you can eat and drink the normal way.”
“I found cookies,” Lilli adds. “Honest-to-god chocolate chip cookies. I called dibs on the whole box, but I could pro
bably be convinced to share, if you want some.”
“Yes, please.”
Vaughn laughs. “She makes sharing sound like a sacrifice, but the truth is that there’s an entire shopping complex not far away, including a grocery store full of boxes of cookies. And bags of potato chips. And little chocolate cakes. And all kinds of coffee. When you’re feeling better you can go shopping for anything you want.”
“I feel good now.”
“First things first,” he insists as he lays me down in the pod. Which, I can now see, looks more like a cocoon than a box. “I have to close the lid,” he reminds me. “But I’ll be right here talking to you the whole time.”
“Don’t leave.” I cling to his right hand as his left reaches up to close the pod.
“Not even death could drag me away,” he swears. And finally, I let him go as the pod closes around me. Even though that brings back the terror I felt when I woke up in a box on Gebose. Naked, with no idea where I was and no memory of how I got there.
“Tell me about Theron,” I whisper as something brushes my right hand. I close my eyes so I don’t have to see the robotic arm that has emerged from the top of the pod to remove my IV. “Did you actually find it? Are we really there?”
“Yes,” Vaughn says. “But it turns out Theron isn’t a planet. It’s a company.”
“Specifically, it’s part of Universal Authority. One of their research divisions,” Dreyer says. “Like the one that turned us into super-soldiers. Only this branch operates on Zelos, which is just as much of a shithole as Rhodon is. But with fewer prisoners.”
“And temperatures too hot to withstand, without special suits,” Lilli adds.
“Wait, Theron is a research company?”
“Yes,” Vaughn says. “We’re in its complex, right now. In an infirmary in the residential building.”
“The entire complex was abandoned after the Bureau raided it, looking for evidence of illegal activity,” Dreyer says, and when her voice changes directions, I realize she’s crossing the room. “They found plenty of that evidence, including the crate Meshach hired us to find.”
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