Oliver Invictus (Annals of Altair Book 3)

by Kate Stradling

  He couldn’t remember seeing a single one of the projectors he had encountered at Prom-C or Prom-D. “Maybe they just transferred them straight to Prom-E,” he said, and guilt for his involvement bubbled up his throat.

  The incidents had not been trivial, exactly. Students had used their projections to bully or harass other students or administrators. The nature of projections had sometimes made it difficult to determine the culprit—similar to how Kennedy Ross had started riots without ever speaking a word.

  Of course Prometheus would consider any deviants to be a threat. Why not send them straight to Prom-E and have done with them?

  “Tell me about your transfer to Prom-F,” Smith said.

  That was a can of worms. Oliver’s mouth curved in disgruntled ire as he relayed the details: four Prometheus escapees, a trail that led through the Southwest, and a brand-new, completely inept handler who had bungled everything. He told about the three weeks he had spent in a GCA holding cell under suspicion of coercion with the truants, and of being released to Prom-F instead of Prom-A.

  “They said it was an error with the computer system and that they would sort it all out. Quincy had been transferred to Prom-F already, though. She tried to warn me that they had done it on purpose, that all nulls ended up at Prom-F, but I still thought I was special. I did what the administrators wanted, believing that they would reward me for it if they saw how loyal I was. But in the end, they turned their backs on me.”

  He relayed the rest of the story—his first encounter with Altair and General Stone both, how the four kids and Quincy had all escaped thanks to a traitor in their midst, and how he and Emily had returned to Prom-F in utter disgrace.

  “And they left me there,” Oliver concluded. It had been a rude awakening, the realization that he had missed his best chance at getting away simply because he hadn’t recognized the prison around him for what it was.

  Smith asked him more questions about Prom-F, about the administrators and handlers that worked there.

  “Does it matter?” Oliver asked, weariness setting into his bones. “They’re all dead now, aren’t they?”

  “Lucian Gates isn’t,” said Smith.

  “What?” The word cut through the teenager’s lips before he thought to contain it. General Stone had said there were survivors, but Oliver had assumed that, had Gates been among them, he would have heard as much. “Is he one of the people in the burn unit?”

  Smith shook his head. “He escaped entirely. As best as anyone can figure, he bolted from the building as soon as the attack began, and he was beyond range of the projection that pulled the adults together in the cafeteria.”

  Oliver bit the inside of his lip as he considered this new information. “Gates is tricky,” he said at last. “Very closed, difficult to read. He was always on good terms with Genevieve, and with Principal Lee from Prom-B—which was odd, because you wouldn’t expect the principal at the flunk school to get along with his two most elite counterparts. The Prom-C and Prom-D principals—Carter and LeGrand—couldn’t stand Genevieve. Any time they met, you could tell that their smiles were strained. Principal Gates never pretended, though. If he escaped the attack, where is he now?”

  Smith had no answer for him. Oliver scowled and slumped back in his chair.

  Their conversation turned to the attack itself, to the events that preceded it and to what happened in the aftermath. The rain outside continued as the hours waxed late. Oliver’s eyelids began to droop. He fought to focus, but it was a losing battle.

  “I think we’re done,” Smith finally said, to his great relief. He stood to turn off the camera. “You go get some rest, okay?”

  “What’re you going to do with that recording?” Oliver asked, his voice slurred.

  “I pass it along to Altair, and they comb it for as much data as they can get and then share the data with their affiliates—the ones in good standing, anyway. Congratulations,” he added dryly. “You’re officially an asset.”

  Oliver wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad one, but he was too tired to muddle it over tonight. Jenifer waited for him in the hall. The moment he appeared, she guided him to a bedroom, tucked him into bed, and left. He was asleep before she’d even shut the door.

  Chapter 26

  A Parting of Ways

  Saturday, March 9, 6:50 AM PST, Seattle

  Jenifer and Smith were locked in a disagreement. At least, that was Oliver’s impression as he trudged down the hall toward the kitchen. They kept their voices too hushed for him to discern any words, but the back-and-forth cadences of their conversation held the rhythm of an argument.

  They looked up from the table as he crossed the threshold.

  “Did you sleep well?” asked Jenifer. Beside her, Smith stood to carry his breakfast dishes to the sink.

  “Yeah,” said Oliver. “What time is the other Smith coming?”

  “He’ll come when he comes,” said Smith curtly.

  “And you’re headed back to Idaho?”

  The man glanced up from rinsing his plate. He nodded and returned to his task. Oliver shifted his attention back to Jenifer in time to see her school away a thin-lipped expression.

  She rose from her chair, motioning him to sit. “We have eggs and toast. Do you want some, or can I fix you something different?”

  “Eggs are fine,” he said. Wearily he dropped into a seat and allowed her to wait on him.

  The pair of adults, tellingly, did not once make eye contact as they both navigated the kitchen. Smith soon retreated to his surveillance room, leaving Oliver and Jenifer behind.

  She set a plate of scrambled eggs and a piece of toast in front of the teen and dropped into the chair across from him with a smile.

  Oliver picked up his fork. “You don’t have to pretend you’re happy.”

  “What makes you think I’m not?”

  “Oh, everything.” He speared a bite and brought it to his mouth. “Have you even told him you like him?”

  “What?” She blushed crimson as the furrow between her brows deepened.

  “You do, don’t you?” It was Emily and Birchard all over again. His bygone handler had played it cool as well, but even at ten years old Oliver could sense her preference. The treacherous Birchard, too, had treated her differently than he did anyone else. He’d still flirted, but he did it more carefully.

  Across from him, Jenifer battled her embarrassment. “You get attached to people when you travel together for weeks on end. It’s nothing more than that.”

  “You get attached to some people,” Oliver allowed. “Some people drive you crazy and you’re glad to be rid of them.”

  One corner of her mouth tipped up. “Are you giving me fair warning?”

  He took another bite of eggs, his shoulders lifting in a wordless shrug. Certainly no one had ever considered him a good travel companion. He’d never tried to be one. To the contrary, he’d always been a rotten little pill, and relished in it.

  But then, the adults who shuttled him from place to place had always been pretty rotten too, Emily excepted.

  After breakfast, Jenifer helped him change his bandages and his shirt. As she strapped the sling back in place, they heard footsteps cross the house. The front door opened and shut.

  “That’ll be the local Smith again,” she said. “We’d better go meet him.”

  As she and Oliver entered the front room, the pair of Smiths were already deep in hushed conversation. They stopped, exchanging a telltale glance. The older man tucked something away in his breast pocket and addressed Oliver. “You’ve made your decision?”

  “I’m going after the Rosses.”

  “Me too,” said Jenifer beside him.

  The local Smith nodded. “Get your things and let’s get on the road then.”

  The other Smith had already related his choice, then.

  Oliver didn’t have any things to get, but he followed Jenifer to the back anyway. “You’re really going to be okay?”

  “Of c
ourse I am.” She hefted a black duffel bag from atop her neatly made bed and handed it to him.

  He took it with his good hand, but wryly asked, “Am I your pack mule now?”

  She grunted a laugh. “That’s yours. It has your extra clothes, bandages, toothbrush, deodorant, et cetera. Mine’s over there under the window. You didn’t expect me to be your pack mule, did you?”

  He stared down at the bag with a creeping sense of shame. “I didn’t know I had anything,” he murmured, though of course the clothes and bandages he was already using must have come from somewhere.

  “Courtesy of the local cell,” said Jenifer. She stooped on the other side of the bed to zip another duffel bag shut and shouldered it as she stood again. “They’ve been very good to us. Make sure you tell the local Smith thank you."

  His instincts rebelled against this reminder, but he squashed them. He would have expressed gratitude anyway, but it didn’t hurt him for Jenifer to prompt that action.

  Their Smith stood quietly to the side as they emerged again into the front room. “Good luck, you two,” he said.

  Oliver set down his duffel bag and thrust out his left hand. “Thanks again, Dr. Moncrieff.”

  Smith suppressed a rueful grin as they shook. “Keep out of trouble, would you?”

  “Kind of an impossible request, considering where we’re headed,” said Jenifer. She too had set aside her bag, but instead of shaking his hand, she hugged him. “Take care.” She patted his shoulder as she stepped back.

  A telltale crimson stained the tips of his ears, but he only nodded, his face schooled to a flat expression.

  And that was the end of it. Oliver and Jenifer followed the local Smith out the door and shut it firmly behind them. A gray sedan waited at the curb. “Gloves on,” said their new handler as he crossed to the driver’s seat.

  Oliver looked inquiringly to Jenifer, who tipped her head to his duffel bag. “In the side pocket. There are probably a dozen roadside readers between here and wherever we’re going.”

  He scooted into the back seat and located the pair of gloves. Jenifer stashed her bag next to him and climbed into the front seat. “Where to?” she asked the local Smith as he started the engine.

  “The airport.”

  Oliver saw her startled expression in profile, but she made no verbal response. It couldn’t be a commercial flight. That would require papers and a chip scan—not to mention the danger of Oliver showing his nationally broadcasted face in such a crowded venue.

  Private or chartered flights would draw scrutiny as well, though. Curious as to how Altair planned to handle his transfer, he hunkered into his seat and watched the streets beyond his window slide by. A slow drizzle began to fall from the overcast sky, misting against the roadways and obscuring visibility.

  “The weather’s on our side, at least,” Jenifer joked. The local Smith grunted, his attention fixed ahead. He kept a stoic silence thereafter.

  After forty minutes of negotiating morning traffic—a sea of electric cars and sullen-faced drivers—they finally pulled onto an exit for the airport. They took a lane that curved off toward the business hangars.

  So they were treating him like cargo. Would that involve consigning him to a crate for this trip?

  The gray sedan pulled up to a security checkpoint. Oliver leaned away from the window, but the local Smith only flashed some credentials to the emerging guard, who waved him on. They proceeded to a hangar where a small crew loaded pallets into the hold of a white cargo plane.

  They pulled into a parking space beside a black van. Their taciturn driver met Oliver’s gaze in the rearview mirror. “I’m turning you over to our affiliate contact here.”

  “Which affiliate?” Jenifer asked.

  “Tallmadge. But I think you already guessed that. Oliver, if you could get out on the passenger side, it’ll keep you better covered from any prying eyes beyond.”

  “Thank you, for everything,” Oliver blurted, and he received another grunt in acknowledgement.

  He had to wait for Jenifer to pull her bag out of the way. She dragged his out as well, and he scooted across the seat to exit the vehicle. As he straightened to his full height, the door on the black van next to them slid abruptly open.

  “You little stink. When did you get so tall?”

  Oliver’s heart stuttered. The rusty-colored beard was unfamiliar, but the laughing eyes and mocking voice he remembered all too well. “No, nope.” He backed against the sedan as though to duck inside again. “I’ve changed my mind. Take me into hiding instead.”

  The man hopped to the ground. His darting hands yanked Oliver up by his good arm. “No you don’t. It’ll be just like old times.”

  “You two know each other?” Jenifer asked, observing with bemusement.

  Oliver grimaced in the throes of a playful headlock. “Know each other? This idiot is Ben Birchard. Or he was, once upon a time.”

  Chapter 27

  Tallmadge

  Jenifer’s mouth fell open as their contact released his headlock and draped a casual arm around Oliver’s shoulders. He offered her his free hand with a grin. “The name’s Cal.”

  “At the moment,” Oliver muttered.

  “Jenifer,” she said as they shook.

  “She’s a pretty good knock-off, eh?” the man said to Oliver, whose pulse quickened.

  So he knew about Emily being replaced with a fake.

  But of course he knew. Birchard had always known everything. There was no reason for him to give up that trait just because he’d faked his own death and started life under a different name.

  Did that mean he knew where the real Emily was, then? Oliver tamped down his instinctive hope; a bitter tang settled on his tongue in its place. Birchard—Cal?—could give or withhold that information as he pleased, the self-congratulatory skunk. He refused to satisfy the man by asking.

  He also refused to call him Cal. “Birchard, I don’t want to work with you.”

  “Oh, cheer up,” he said, clapping Oliver’s good shoulder in camaraderie. “We’re on the same team this time.”

  “We were supposed to be on the same team last time,” said Oliver through clenched teeth.

  “And so we would’ve been if you’d wised up a little sooner. And it’s Cal from here on, if you please.”

  “I don’t.”

  A sigh escaped the man’s lungs. He looked skyward, but with a smile trembling on his lips.

  Infuriating as ever.

  “Tell you what. You can call me Ben if it makes you feel better. ‘Birchard’ is dead and buried, though. Come on, now. The plane’s ready to leave.” He practically dragged Oliver across the tarmac.

  Jenifer trotted alongside them, carrying both duffel bags. “Isn’t there a government inspection before take-off? Where do you plan to hide us?”

  “Nowhere. The inspector’s the one who brought you.”

  Oliver twisted around to view the gray sedan and its driver, who sat reading a paperback novel. Altair had things well in hand once again, as it always did. The quiet misgivings that fluttered within him multiplied. Had he made a wrong choice? What fates had he offended, to fall under the aegis of someone who had once cheerfully betrayed him?

  But they were on the same team this time. They both had escaped from Prometheus and had every reason to steer clear of the GCA.

  The trio strapped into a set of jump seats behind the cockpit, Oliver and Jenifer next to each other and Ben across from them.

  “I can’t get over how tall you are,” Ben said, bumping knees with him.

  “And you look like you’ve taken up a career as a woodsman,” Oliver replied. “Added a few pounds too, didn’t you?”

  He tipped his head, unruffled. “I have a wife and two kids to worry about now, so the dad-body goes with the property.”

  While Oliver processed this jarring disclosure, Jenifer hissed, leaning forward. “What are you doing out with Tallmadge if you have a family?”

  “I’m like a moth to the
flame where danger’s concerned,” Ben said, though not in a serious tone.

  Her concern didn’t diminish. “But—”

  Oliver jostled her. “Don’t worry about him. He’ll have an exit strategy. Snakes always do.”

  “He’s right, you know,” said Ben with a sage nod. “In this case the exit strategy is more not to enter the fray at all, if possible. We only need Oliver in the general vicinity, not involved in the main operation.” He reached across the space between them to hand Jenifer a file. “This is what we know of the Rosses’ movements so far. You two can review it together. Let me know if you have any questions.”

  Oliver, grudgingly curious, leaned over to read as she held the file’s contents at an angle for him and her both. Abel and Kennedy had traveled south in stages—by road, by train, never for long stretches and with rests in between. Kennedy’s projections, though useful in getting them transportation, would wear off and create a trail for the government to follow. Her father had chosen discretion over speed, traveling with the help of the Brotherhood members who sympathized with his cause.

  Their trail led straight down into California.

  “They really are headed to Prom-C,” Oliver said, an unhappy slant to his mouth. It was the next natural step in their path of destruction, now that Prom-F and Prom-B were both destroyed.

  Ben reclined in his seat as though sleeping, but he opened one eye at this question. “Logically they should be headed to Prom-E. That’s where the other daughter’s been taken.”

  “But no one knows where Prom-E is,” Oliver said.

  “Of course we do. It’s in Texas.”

  He jerked in his chair, much to his new overseer’s amusement. Oliver mentally slapped himself for such a reaction. Ben delighted in taking others by surprise with his superior knowledge. Of course he would know where to find Prom-E.

  “If you know where it is, do you know what happens to the people who get sent there?”