Complete Control

by L. V. Lane

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Epilogue

  Glossary

  About the Author

  Deviant Control: An Alpha and Omega dark science fiction romance (The Controllers...

  Taking Control: An Alpha and Omega dark science fiction romance (The Controllers...

  Complete Control: An Alpha and Omega dark science fiction romance (The Controllers...

  COMPLETE CONTROL

  L.V. Lane

  Copyright © 2019 L.V. Lane

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 978-0-6485333-2-0

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the author.

  Contains dark romantic scenes that some readers may be sensitive to. It is intended for adults only.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Extensive trials followed the development of the Copper virus, and these yielded what was now categorized as the Delta through Mu dynamics.

  These early trials led to the first mass release on the tiny outer-reaches planet, Adora3, a mining planet with a high military presence.

  The Copper virus does not work as if given a blank slate. It takes what is offered in the individuals DNA and encourages it to flourish. The first Alpha dynamics manifested within days. Untrained and unchecked, the results were devastating. They were revealed among the strongest, mentally and physically, and many occupied positions of power within the government, business, military, and the police.

  Knowing the observers from the Empire’s governing council would destroy them, and the whole planet if necessary, they took action.

  All too easily, the virally altered inhabitants of Adora3 infected the next world.

  Doctor Lillian Brach

  Anna

  I AWOKE TO the sound of the world ending.

  A mighty roar like thunder, only louder, longer, and higher pitched. It ended on a deafening screech.

  It pumped malaise into my veins. It was the sound of the gates of hell opening and of monsters pouring out.

  Into the silence that followed, an alarm blared—the evacuation cycle.

  The city’s defenses had been breached.

  “Anna!” My mother’s voice, muffled through the walls of my bedroom, was like a shot of ice blasting apart my stupor. “Anna, we need to leave!”

  Stumbling from my bed, my thoughts scattered as my eyes searched the room without focus.

  The city’s defenses had been breached, and we were under attack.

  The alarm shifted to a terrifying whoop-whoop and urged me to take immediate action.

  My room was a mess. Why wasn’t I tidy? I ripped into the piles of scattered clothing, hunting for something to wear.

  The door flung open and my head whipped around to find my father standing there. My younger brother was in his arms, still in his pajamas, his big brown eyes wide with fear. “Shoes!” my father snapped as my mother barreled into the room behind him, strapping my baby sister, in her carry, to her chest. “Shoes, honey,” he repeated gentler. “Just get your shoes. We need to get to the shelter.”

  My vision tunneled as I searched for my sneakers, finding one next to the bed and the other before my wardrobe. Shoving my feet in one and then the other, I straightened. “Here,” my mother pressed a jacket upon me, and I tugged it on over my pajamas.

  We left the apartment, heading down the many stairs, circling around and joining others doing the same. There were too many people. Locks should have been in place that released a floor at a time, but they had all been busted. In the chaos, people tripped and tumbled, their screams merging with bellowed curses and threats.

  Anger; there was so much anger, anxiety, and pain in their voices. I could almost feel their pain like it was crawling under my skin and latching onto tender nerves. My father kept a tight hold on my mother’s hand, and my mother gripped my wrist so fiercely I was sure my arm would dislodge from its socket before she would let go.

  People pushed and squeezed within the narrow stairwell. We became animals fighting to survive.

  My father was a quiet man in speech and in action, I had never heard strong words leave his lips before he charged into my room tonight. But the danger threatening his family had gripped him now, and he dragged us through the chaos like a man possessed.

  I saw so much I would like to forget just getting out of that building. Bodies hurt and twisted. People violent and determined. It was a relief to escape that suffocating crush together, and we huddled in the entry of a nearby shop as the writhing masses rushed by. My baby sister was screaming, and my mother murmured soothing words as she bounced her in her arms. My younger brother clung to my father, his tiny body trembling.

  The air was chilled, it was dark and damp, streets glistening between the brace of buildings. Vehicles had been abandoned; crowds pounded by in a jostling sea. My father’s focus shifted to something over my shoulder. “Anna, do you have your smart-band on?”

  “Yes.” I felt overwhelmed. I was eighteen, I looked much younger, and right now, I felt about five.

  “Okay, honey. It’s going to be okay.” He dragged me in close for a quick, tight hug. “You know where the shelter is. Whatever happens, keep heading there.”

  I nodded.

  “We need to leave,” my mother urged, still bouncing my baby sister whose screams had settled to exhausted hiccups.

  “I know,” my father replied. He leaned in to speak to my mother. She nodded.

  As my eyes darted between them, I felt mounting dread. I looked back to where my father’s gaze had settled earlier. Fires and flashing lights distorted the air, and from the smoke, tall monsters emerged. Battle-walkers? I stumbled half a step back.

  Twice as tall as a man, battle-walkers made a formidable weapon. The mechanical beast looked like a raptor, with two sets of double cannons replacing the stumpy front claws of a dinosaur. The smaller guns were super-charged automatic weapons, the larger could cut through ground vehicles and even buildings—little could stand in its way.

  “We need to leave,” my mother repeated.

  My father nodded.

  We left, running alongside the jostling mass of people. A great mindless surging crowd whose only imperative was to flee. We tried to stay at the edges, but fresh streams merged with the river, pouring out of buildings and side streets, forcing us deeper into the mass.

  It became impossible to stay connected or choose direction once we were swept up into that mob.

  As the road ahead narrowed, my mother was dragged away in a surge. My father’s cry followed. Too many people converging on a diminishing gap. Here I stayed for long minutes, wedged between my father and wild-eyed strangers.

  We fought to escape, crushing forces bearing upon us from all sides. I was too small, my head barely reaching an adult’s chest. I was stuck in the mass,
which was growing denser. My father's firm grip held me beside him, while my younger brother clung in his arms.

  “Anna, look at me.” He pulled my face up as the crowd jostled us, forcing unsteady steps one way and then the other. “Just run, honey.” He pushed me into a tiny gap that no other adult could make.

  “No!”

  I didn’t want to go.

  I didn’t have a choice. The mass surged again, and I was forced on with that relentless determination of people teetering on the brink of anarchy. They carried me with them, and I was a helpless leaf caught in a raging river. Elbows, fists, and bodies beat into me until I was ejected out onto the edge.

  I staggered into an alleyway, then righted myself. I was dizzy, bleeding from my lips and nose, sore and battered. Sagging, I sucked in air, hands braced on my knees.

  Noise, there was so much noise, distant explosions, and screams that merged into a cacophony. That river spat victims out and sucked others back in. People were falling and had fallen, bodies broken, some screaming and some silent. My breath steadied. My jacket was long gone, and a deep scratch ran the length of my forearm where a falling woman had raked nails.

  I was shaking badly. My parents were easy-going people, and the greatest source of angst between us was the state of my room. My brother had sabotaged my shoes with action figures only yesterday, and I swore I wanted him dead. And my baby sister—I loved seeing her perfect cherub face morph into a toothless smile—not so much the angry wails. Like all families, there were good and bad days, but I couldn’t bear to think about them caught within that mob.

  I wanted to cry; felt like I should be, but there was a numbing blanket over me. Shock? Even recognizing I was in shock did not lift it away.

  My arm throbbed, everywhere throbbed. I touched fingers to my thick lip where I had caught an elbow. It stung, but I was whole.

  A man collapsed beside me, gurgling up blood, eyes stretched wide in the throes of death. A fight broke out to my left as a small gang set upon a single man, their motivation unclear.

  I could not stay here. Staying here was dangerous.

  As I looked around, I realized we had traveled a surprising distance, but not in the right direction for the shelter.

  Help would come, wouldn’t it? Attacks like this had happened throughout the empire. Our troops would be deployed, possibly already had been. I just needed to hide from our enemy, and from our own people who now preyed on the weak.

  Turning from the rushing mass, I ran. I was small, but it was all toned muscle since I loved jogging. There were many parkways in the city, and I could disappear for hours, just running, lost in my head. My parents had encouraged me to dance as a child, thinking I might reveal as an artistic Mu, like them. But I’d always had a special fondness for the idea of becoming a Healer. It just sounded so amazing—miraculous.

  I was eighteen now. At this age most people knew if they were going to reveal a dynamic.

  Such worries seemed insignificant as I ran on, feeling defiance well up. I was going to get through this.

  I ran. I did not know where I was running to, only that I must get away from those terrible sounds of destruction. My flight was random and ragged. What once had been a safe, monitored environment, became dark and unwelcoming. Most people, like me, were merely intent upon fleeing. But I also saw acts of aggression and shops being looted, and heard gunshots and screams. I heard a lot of screams.

  The war had come to my home. A war that I had once watched on news reports, had torn my life to pieces.

  It had all begun with the Copper virus and those who refused to accept the ‘engineered upgrade’. They called the virus a corruption, and they called themselves the Uncorrupted.

  Their mission was to kill everyone with a dynamic.

  I traveled for many hours, walking when I tired, jogging whenever I could, and leaving the familiar parts of the city far behind. The tumult followed me, driving me ever on. By the time daylight brought gray through the drizzle, I was exhausted and could barely put one foot in front of the other. I found a quiet alleyway and began testing doors, looking for a place that I might hide. Nothing but a small broken window—I’d be badly cut in these clothes.

  Turning the corner, it took me a few steps before I recognized the consequence of my fatigue. I stopped dead, mind locking up as I stared at the soldiers standing at the end of the intersection, noting the glisten of exoskeletons covering their backs and limbs down to hands and feet.

  I took a slow step back, like a rabbit backing away from a wolf, barely breathing, and frighteningly alert. They had not seen me yet, but if they turned this way, they would. A boom came from behind as jets roared overhead. I caught only a glimpse of them, a flash of silver between the tall buildings. Were they ours? Was help finally here?

  When my focus returned to the Uncorrupted, they were now all looking at me.

  Adrenaline flooded my weary body. Pivoting, I ran back around the corner, vision tunneling and eyes searching for a place I might hide. The alleyway offered nothing. The doors were locked tight, I knew because I had already tested them. I could hear footsteps approaching, pounding against the wet road.

  They were giving chase, and I could not hope to outrun them.

  The broken window drew my eye. It was small; I was smaller, and they were bigger. I shoved a broken crate under it, used a discarded carton to knock the worse of the remaining glass out as best I could, and dived through.

  The jagged edges ripped into skin protected only by my flimsy pajamas. The sounds leaving my throat were those of a wounded animal, but the heavy thud of approaching footsteps galvanized me into action. Biting on my lip to stifle my whimpers, I collapsed onto a long metallic table that sat beneath the window.

  I heard them cursing outside. “The test is positive. Find the door,” someone called. The pain was so excruciating I thought I might be sick, but the sprinkle of glass as they beat at the window frame overrode it. Pitching off the side of the table, I found myself in an industrial kitchen, the kind that could support a hotel or restaurant. More glass rained down onto the metallic table. I didn’t wait around to see what was coming and stumbled through the door.

  Beyond was a corridor with dirty cream walls and scuffed gray floors. To my left, it led back to a roller door where the Uncorrupted were trying to get in. The wild thumping urged me on, and I turned right. Two doors were on the left, one on the right and a terminating wall at the end. I tried the first, frantically rattling the handle. Outside, came the growl of shuttle engines, explosions, and the buzz of automatic weapon fire. More enemy?

  Blood trickled down my legs and dripped from my fingers as I rattled the next handle.

  Locked.

  A great crash came from behind—just as the last handle yielded to my fingers and I fell through. Automatic lights blinked on to reveal a storeroom stuffed with drunken stacks of tables, and chairs and a couple of tall shelving units. I flung myself under a table, crawling inside the stacks, squeezing ever deeper in as if this would save me. A trail of blood followed me. They would come, and they would find me, but all I could think about was putting something—anything—between them and me.

  As I reached the wall, I slammed my back against it, shivering so hard my teeth chattered. Adrenaline was ebbing out of me, and pain poured in.

  “Where the fuck is she?” one man called.

  “In here. She came in here just as the door busted,” another replied. “Sensor picking up anything?”

  “No, not through all this junk,” another replied. “We don’t have time for this. We need to leave.”

  “Blood!” another said.

  I could see booted feet between the forest of table and chair legs. Two pairs, then another three pairs entered the room.

  One man crouched. I stopped breathing and tried to press myself farther back into the wall. His helmeted head turned, panning along the floor between the many furniture legs…until it stopped when facing at me. With a sharp twist, the helmet was removed,
and he fixed his eyes on me.

  Those helmets made me think of giant ants, and belonged only in nightmares. It was worse when he removed it, because underneath was an ordinary man.

  “Found her,” he said. “She’s bleeding, but still looks alert.”

  A cry came from beyond the door.

  The man jumped to his feet. The put-put-put of firing automatics filled the air as a roaring cacophony erupted inside and outside the room. Shouts and screams followed, and I cowered, hands clamped over my ears. More boots entered, something heavy hit the table above me. It creaked ominously, and I shot to the side, crawling out just in time as the straining table collapsed. As I wedged myself between a stack of chairs and a shelving unit, more soldiers filled the room.

  None wore exoskeletons. And the armor was black, not gray.

  They were our soldiers.

  Shaking hard, tears streamed down my face in a volatile combination of relief that I might be rescued and fear that they would not prevail. One of our soldiers snatched up the enemy without a helmet. Closing his fingers over his throat, he threw him against the wall as if he were nothing. The body bounced off it and crumpled to the floor in a heap.

  With cold precision, the soldier drew a gun from a holster at his thigh and shot the broken enemy.

  Silence followed. Clamping hands over my mouth, I rocked, fighting to keep in my cries. They were our soldiers, but I was so dazed by the ferocity of the attack that I could not calm myself.

  A tiny sob escaped between my fingers, and his head swung my way. “Civilian,” he said, and it took me several seconds to realize that he was not talking to me. “From what I can see, cut to hell. I’ll bring her in. Continue the sweep.”

  As the room emptied, he shoved the gun back into the holster and held up both hands. “I’m not going to hurt you.” Reaching up, he unclipped his helmet, exposing a face that was all hard angles and devoid of warmth. He took a slow step forward, and I jumped, slamming myself against the wall like I was trying to drive through it. I needed a better place to hide!