by Jon McGoran
Almost as an afterthought, I tried the knob, and found it unlocked.
I turned to the others, shrugged, and went inside. There was a light switch by the door. The apartment was small and run-down, but tidy. There was a bed in one corner—neatly made—and across from it a small sofa and a coffee table with a neat stack of comic books. No Holovid. There was a tiny kitchenette, and one door to a closet and another door to a bathroom. I checked the bathroom and the closet, looked around once more, and left.
Sly and Claudia watched me as I came back down the wooden steps. “He’s not there,” I said.
Claudia frowned. “So now what?”
“Could he be working a night shift?” Sly asked.
“He never said anything about working nights,” I said. “I hope he’s okay.”
“Me, too,” Claudia said. “Should we wait here?”
Sly looked at me and shook his head.
“Sly’s right,” I said. “Let’s get to the car and find a phone, see if there’s any news on Rex, any progress on getting the word out about OmniCare. Then we can circle back here and see if Kiet’s come back.”
Sly smiled. “For all we know, he and Rex are probably at E4E right now, preparing for a press conference.”
I couldn’t muster the same optimism, and my eagerness to find Rex wrestled with my reluctance to move on without Kiet.
Then I had an idea. If I were Kiet, and I’d been looking for Devon all that time and finally found him stuck out there in the woods, I’d find some way to be out there with him. “Maybe he’s in Centre Hollow,” I said as we resumed walking. “With Devon.”
Claudia looked doubtful. “He can’t breathe in Centre Hollow.”
“Maybe not with him, but near him. There were those houses on the outskirts.”
“Yeah, maybe.” Claudia looked at Sly, who looked at me.
“It’s worth a shot,” I said.
The car was just as we had left it, apart from a thin crust of ice that had laminated a note onto the windshield that read THIS IS NOT A PARKING SPACE in thick, angry green marker.
Claudia scanned for trackers and found one in the left rear wheel well.
I was afraid we were going to have to scrape the ice, and I worried the motion would set off the tracker, but instead Claudia got in and started the car. We waited outside, so as not to jostle it. In seconds, the heat from inside the car melted the ice on the windows, sending it sliding down the glass in wet sheets. She pulled the note off the window and crumpled it up.
“You ready?” she said.
We nodded, and she reached into the wheel well and pulled off the magnetic tracker, then carefully lowered it to the ground, right next to the tire. We quickly got into the car, and she backed out, careful not to disturb the tracker as we drove off, toward Centre Hollow.
CHAPTER 45
I wonder if the SmartPike’s back up and running,” Claudia said as we headed out of Gellersville.
Sly leaned forward in the backseat. “I meant to ask earlier—was that really you two?”
I hooked a thumb at Claudia, who grinned as she explained what we’d done. She seemed to relish the tale. I felt newly traumatized just hearing about it again.
When she was done, Sly sat back and whistled. “Man, you two are hard-core.”
I almost reminded him that he had rappelled out of the bottom of a quadcopter to save us, but I didn’t really feel like talking. Thinking of Kiet and Devon had got me thinking about Rex.
The SmartPike was working fine. We took it to the Belfield exit, onto Bogen Road, all without incident. The sun was fully up by then, but Claudia drove very slowly as we approached the spot where we had skidded before, carefully avoiding the raised chunks and potholes while I kept an eye out for the abandoned road that led to Centre Hollow.
“There it is,” I said, pointing to a vague suggestion of a gap in the trees. Centre Hollow’s Main Street, or what was left of it, covered with leaves and snow.
Sly leaned forward and squinted out the windshield. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah, that’s it,” Claudia said. “What there is of it.” She started to turn the car toward it, and I turned to her.
“You’re going to drive there?” I said, vaguely alarmed.
“Yeah,” she said. “It’s not much worse than the road we’re on.”
I glanced back at Sly and he shrugged.
The tires slid on leaves and ice for a second as we started up the hill, but they gained traction as the road leveled out. We passed the wrecked VW and the WELCOME TO CENTRE HOLLOW sign. The little cluster of houses was just ahead.
I knew it was safe to breathe here, that this was where Devon and his friends had dragged us, where we had recovered. But as the road started downhill, I worried about driving much farther into Centre Hollow. I was about to suggest maybe we should walk the rest of the way, when a figure looked out from one of the houses. The place was little more than a shack. The glass was missing from the windows, but tattered red curtains still flapped in them.
“There he is!” I said, pointing. “It’s Kiet!”
Claudia stopped the car. She and I got out and ran toward him. “Kiet!” I called out.
“Hey!” He smiled as he emerged from the doorway, but his eyes looked tired and hollow, like he was happy to see us but not happy about much else. “What happened last night? Did you go back to Philadelphia?”
“We never made it,” I said.
“What happened?”
Claudia started to answer, but I cut her off. “Long story, but we’re okay,” I said. “Kiet, have you seen Rex? We were told he’d been bailed out, but no one seems to know who did it, or where he is.”
He nodded, looking down. “Right after work. I saw Rex come out of the police station with two men. They were laughing and smiling, but I recognized them. They work for Charlesford.”
I felt my entire body invaded by a dark, cold dread.
“I tried to get to him, to tell him,” he said. “I ran over, but they got into a van and drove off before I got there.”
I couldn’t breathe. “So…Rex is at OmniCare?”
“I think so, yes. I’m so sorry, Jimi.”
I nodded, trying not to let panic overwhelm me. Claudia put an arm around me.
“What about E4E?” I said. “Have they been out here at all? At the hospital? Their lawyers or anything?”
Kiet shook his head. “I haven’t seen any sign of them.”
I turned to Claudia. “Then I guess it’s Plan B.”
Claudia nodded, her face somber.
“What are you going to do?” Kiet asked.
“We have a plan,” I said. “A plan and some tools.” I opened my jacket to reveal the dart gun Dara had given me. Sly and Claudia did the same. Kiet’s eyes widened, and in them I saw a trace of excitement and optimism.
“But we’re going to need your help,” I said. “And we’re going to need to talk to Devon, too.”
Whatever light I had seen in his eyes went out, like a candle pinched between wet fingers. “Devon’s not well,” he said quietly.
“He’s sick?” I tried to sound more sympathetic than alarmed, and more surprised than I was.
“Yes,” he said. “And it’s getting worse, so if your plan depends on him you need to change it.”
“We just need to talk to him. It’s important.”
“Okay,” he said, reluctantly. “You’ll have to keep it short, though. He’s exhausted.”
“Of course,” I said.
He glanced at his watch. “And I have to leave for work soon so I’m not late for the morning deliveries.”
He turned and we followed him, the ground sloping down in front of us toward the clearing outside Centre Hollow. Along the way, we introduced Sly and Kiet to each other.
Then Kiet seemed to think of something and he flashed us a grin, brief but so genuine it seemed almost jarringly out of place. He shoved his hand into his pocket and said, “There is some good news.”
&nb
sp; CHAPTER 46
Kiet held up a little metal tube encased in a plastic holder. I knew right away what it was.
“Oh my God,” I said. “Is that a splinter inhaler?”
He nodded, staring at it with a mixture of disgust and reverence.
He handed it to me, and I turned it over in my hands. On the front it said SUSTAINED PLASMID INFECTION NANOSPEAR THERAPY RESPIRANT (SPLINTR). A sticker on the back said SUSTAINED AAV REINFECTION—90 DAYS. REAPPLICATION NOT RECOMMENDED DUE TO ACQUIRED IMMUNITY.
I read it again and again, trying to remember exactly what Doc had said about nanospears being used to deliver AAV, adeno-associated virus, how it was different from somatic splices, like chimeras get, and germ-line splices, which get passed down from generation to generation.
Sly reached for the mister and I gave it to him. “So…so is this what they use to…”
“To maim those poor miners so they can’t breathe air?” Kiet said, finishing his sentence as he took it back. “Yes. New. Unused. Unopened. Full.”
“Kiet, that’s great!” Claudia said.
“It is,” I said, turning to Sly. “No one’s going to believe us about OmniCare without proof, but this could change everything.”
“And get Doc out of jail,” Claudia added.
I was about to ask Kiet how he got it, but he held up his hand to stop us and called out, “Rajiv!”
The clearing was just ahead of us, and on the far side it, at the bottom of the hill, Rajiv appeared from behind a slight rise.
“Hey,” he called out.
Kiet hooked his thumb at Claudia, Sly, and me. “They need to talk to Devon. Can you get him?”
Rajiv looked doubtful. “I’ll see how he’s doing.” Then he turned and we watched him disappear further down into the hollow.
“You never told me what happened to you last night,” Kiet said.
Claudia launched into it, as if she was glad to fill the silence. She told a good story, and it had been an eventful time. When she got to the part about shutting down the SmartPike, Kiet said, “Wait, that was you? Man, they’ve been looking for you. They think you’re the same terrorists behind the H4H bombings.”
“We’re not terrorists,” Claudia shot back. “We were running for our lives.”
He put up his hands. “Hey, I’m glad you got away. I’m just telling you what they were saying.”
We told him about getting saved or extracted or whatever, and ending up in the Chimerica camp.
“Chimerica?” He snorted. “I didn’t think that was a real place.”
“It’s real,” Sly said. “But it’s not a place.”
“What is it, then?”
“A group, kind of. A secret organization, kind of. Not many people know about the actual details.”
“A secret group? Are you with them?”
Sly nodded.
Kiet’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Oh my God, are you the ones behind the bombings?”
“No,” Sly said, indignantly. “That’s, like, the opposite of what Chimerica is all about.”
“Okay, good.” Kiet shook his head. “I mean, I want to fight back against H4H, too. But these bombers are doing a lot more harm than good.”
“What do you mean?” Claudia asked.
“I mean the H4Hers are riled up big-time. In the last twenty-four hours, Wells has been all over the news and support for H4H is going through the roof. A bunch of other states are fast-tracking their versions of GHA. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has said they’re not going to hear the case.”
“You mean they’re letting it stand?” I asked, horrified. “E4E’s legal challenge lost?”
“Afraid so.”
“They don’t even know chimeras are behind the bombings.”
He nodded. “They do now. It’s a group called CLAD, Chimera Liberation and Defense. They took responsibility last night.”
“Idiots!” Sly said, shaking his head. “I mean, there’s no way the US Supreme Court is going to let GHA stand. I can’t see that happening. But meanwhile, these morons are turning the tide against us, just when we were making progress against those H4H lunatics. That’s why Chimerica is—”
He stopped suddenly as Devon appeared at the bottom of the hill.
Devon coughed, holding onto Rajiv for support, but he winked at Kiet and said, “Did you miss me?” Then he seemed to notice the rest of us. “You’re back.”
“We need your help,” I said.
He coughed again, and put his hand against a tree, shifting his weight away from Rajiv. “I don’t feel like I could be much help to anybody right now.”
“We’re going to break into OmniCare, into the mine. We’re going to get everyone out of there and shut that place down. Today.”
Devon shook his head. “I don’t think you quite understand. Everybody down there has already been splintered. That mine is the only place they can breathe. That’s part of the reason they only need eight guards for eighty or ninety prisoners, remember? No one escapes, because they can’t breathe anywhere else.”
“You breathe here in Centre Hollow.”
“Yeah, but it’s too far. They’d never make it.”
“It’s too far on foot, but not driving.” I turned to Kiet. “If Kiet can steal the hospital truck, once it’s empty.”
Kiet took a step back. “What? I can’t do that on my own.”
I was about to reassure him that he could, but Sly raised a hand. “I can help with that. I’ll go with you.”
Claudia opened her mouth as if to object, and I totally understood. I had several ways in mind that Sly could help us with our plan, and none of them involved helping Kiet take the truck, but I caught her eye and shook my head. Kiet seemed like he was still getting used to the idea, and I didn’t want to put him off again. She closed her mouth but looked at me, confused.
“Yeah, okay,” Kiet said finally. “That could work.”
Devon was slowly nodding. “And you’re going to bring them here?”
“Yup. By truck, we can get everybody from the mine to Centre Hollow in less than ten minutes. Way less. We’ll time it just right. Kiet said the truck has to be empty by ten thirty. We could have it at the mine entrance by ten forty-five and have everyone here, safe, by eleven o’clock. Today.”
“How are you going to get into the mine?” he asked.
“We have dart guns,” I said. “We can dart the guards and take their exosuits and their breathers.” If we needed to, the plan was to press the buzzer on the door and dart them when they answered. We were hoping that wouldn’t be necessary.
Devon raised an eyebrow. “You know how to use an exosuit?”
“Claudia does,” I said.
She nodded. “My dad’s company has a couple. He let me try one of them. It freaked my mom out but they’re actually pretty simple to use. Designed to be intuitive.”
“Once we have a suit, we can sneak up and dart the next one, then the two after that, and the two after that. When the truck arrives, we’ll load everyone on and bring them here.”
“It sounds so easy,” Devon said. His tone was sarcastic, but his eyes twinkled. “It might be doable. It’s a simple layout inside, and those exoguards think they’re invincible in those suits. They don’t really expect anyone to try to escape, much less to attack from the outside. But at the first whiff of trouble, they’ll just lock the place down. I’ve seen them do it. There’s lockdown switches throughout. And there’s cameras, so they’d totally see you. If anyone hits the lockdown, you’re screwed, along with everyone else down there.”
Claudia and I glanced at each other. “That’s why we need your help,” she said.
Kiet stiffened.
“What kind of help?” Devon asked.
“We just need a map,” I told him. “You said there’s a master switch for the doors, and one for the cameras. You know where they are. Couldn’t that override a lockdown?”
He thought about it for a moment, then slowly nodded his head. “Yes, it woul
d. Plus it would open the dorm, the processing unit. Everything. But the master switch is in the processing unit. You’d never get in there.”
“You said you saw it.”
“Yeah, but that was from the vent.”
“Right,” I said. “We need you to draw us a map of the vent, a diagram, so one of us can get there.”
I wasn’t looking forward to climbing down into that vent, but I felt a wave of excitement and relief. I saw it reflected on Claudia’s face, and Sly’s too. When I looked back at Devon, though, I saw something very different.
“What?” Sly asked him. “What’s wrong?”
Devon shook his head. “The ventilation system has all sorts of branches and turns. Even if I could draw you a map that was close to accurate or made any kind of sense, you’d never find your way. And even if you could, you wouldn’t be able to breathe. Even with a breather, you wouldn’t have time to find the control panels, much less get back out.”
I knew Devon was just thinking this through, that he was only trying to help. But the frustration and anxiety and stress and all the other emotions came bubbling out before I could control them.
“Then what?” I cried out. “What are you saying we should do? How can we get down there? How can we open the doors and get those people to safety?”
Devon shook his head, his face sad and resigned, but—maddeningly—almost at peace.
“You can’t,” he said, in a calm tone that I found even more infuriating. Then he added, “But I can.”
CHAPTER 47
No!” Kiet exclaimed. “You can’t go back in there!”
Devon smiled and shook his head. “I have to,” he said. “It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
“No, it doesn’t. It doesn’t make any sense at all.” Kiet turned to me, looking for backup. “We’ll call E4E again, wait for them to get here. Why do we have to do this now, right this minute?”
“Because we can’t leave those people down there any longer than they have to be,” I said. “And…and because if Rex is down there, we need to get him out. Before they splinter him, too.”