Jules assumed Yeera had already set devices full of thermal generator fuel at each corner of the continent, and now she was saving the biggest for last.
The Sub-Base was huge, five times the size of the one Yeera had lived at, and Jules saw other Snow-Trackers parked in the cold, as well as a couple of Shimmali landers. Maybe there were other people around the Core.
This thought motivated her, and she ran even faster, crossing the icy distance within a couple minutes. They pressed their backs to a lander, and Dean pulled out the Locator. “She’s close, but in that direction.” He pointed to the Core, where the ice rose upward in smooth streaks.
“She’s inside. We have to check the camp; come on.” Jules went first, moving for the entrance to the structure, and rushed in. “Help! We need your assistance. We’re Gatek…”
It was a bloodbath. She noticed five bodies in the open room. None were armed; each wore white lab coats. Doctor Yeera had arrived and killed them without a second thought. Dean ran past the corpses, while Jules knelt by each of the victims, checking for signs of life. The Shimmali researchers were all dead. Her gloves were soaked in blood, and she gaped at them, momentarily forgetting where she was.
“Jules!” Dean’s voice brought her back to reality, and she stumbled from the nearest body, a young girl, maybe her own age. Dean was perched at a console, his eyes wide as his fingers dashed over the keypad. “I sent a message to Sarlun.”
There wasn’t time to wait for reinforcements. Yeera had killed all these innocents without a second thought, and that meant she was all in. There was no turning back for Doctor Yeera, not anymore.
Jules ran from the room, feeling the weight of the detonators in her pack, rattling beside the sphere. Dean’s footsteps echoed behind her as she pressed from the room, thick with the scent of death, and she breathed deeply, turning her attention to the looming Core and the icy opening a hundred meters in front of her.
She ran for it. Her heartbeats felt like a ticking time bomb, each one coming closer to detonation.
____________
The climb wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d thought. It was far worse. I was grateful to be in our spacesuits but was concerned that the puncture-proof fabric would be put to the test on the harsh terrain. Everything was spiked and hazardous, even the colorful flowers that popped out of any opening where sun found the forest floor.
Slate marched with purpose and in a cloud of silence, which I didn’t attempt to break. We’d only heard the calls of the animal a couple more times, but they sounded farther away, less ominous with each bellow.
I slowed, glancing behind me to the beach we’d landed at. From this elevation and through a break in the treeline, I spotted the glint of sunlight against the metal hull of the drone.
I was about to start walking again, when I saw the very same drone rise in the air and take off, flying in the direction we’d come from. Slate didn’t seem to notice, and I sighed, considering not telling him. In the end, I couldn’t hold the information from my friend. “Slate, the drone left.”
He stopped, hiding his face from me. “Damned drones.” That was it. He continued on, and I trailed behind him.
The building was closer, and I spied its wall through a span between tree trunks. “Couple more minutes,” Slate said, his tone flat and worrisome to me.
That turned into a half-hour of steep climbing, and we were finally through the dense brush, pressing into a clearing at a twenty-foot cliff face. Something whooshed above, and I peered up, seeing thousands of the winged creatures flying in a skillful formation.
Slate didn’t seem to care. His attention was fully fixed on getting to the building perched on the rocky face atop the highest point of the island. I was hungry, tired, and sweating despite the climate control programmed into my suit, but I went on as we wound our way to the far end of the cliff.
To my surprise, there were crude stairs carved into the ground. “Did you know these were here?” I asked Slate quietly.
“Nope.” He took them, ascending faster up the flight of steps.
The building looked like it had been designed by the same people that had manufactured the city among the mountains, which was a good sign. This was it. Their secret drone controls had to be out here, or we were stuck with no means to escape the damned island.
The exterior was beige, likely covered with some local mud, since it matched the landscape of the cliff top. They’d done their best for it to blend in, but the structure was still obvious. Slate went first, entering the open doorway. The room was dark, but it held nothing but a staircase leading into the island itself.
“Why can’t anything ever be simple?” he asked, showing some of his personality for the first time since we’d set foot on the landmass.
“Because difficult missions teach us lessons,” I said, trying to imitate Sarlun.
“I’m done with lessons, Boss. Shall we?” He pointed at the stairs, and I shrugged.
“Only way is down.” I entered before him, rifle up, my suit’s embedded lights on, spreading their beams to brighten my path.
The stairs went about twenty deep, and we found a landing before another set. This went on for what felt like an eternity as we lowered into the mass of the island, twenty steps at a time, until my legs burned with the effort.
Slate seemed unfazed by the brutal exercise, and we eventually found the lowest section. “Why would they hide their controls here?” he asked.
“They’re quite civilized, with impressive technology. This entire underground complex isn’t quite what I would have predicted,” I admitted.
“There has to be a reason.” Slate rested a hand on a metal panel door, and pried it open.
My jaw fell when I saw it, and Slate staggered backwards.
Inside was a round portal stone, the strange and unique version that Jules had discovered on Menocury L05. The very same stone that the local tribe of Nirzu had worshiped as a god.
“How can this be?” Slate asked.
It was dark, not glowing or pulsing, but I could tell what it was. It was electric, and my tongue tingled.
The room’s walls matched the inside of the drones, the floor smooth and metallic like the streets in their city. But the centerpiece was the portal stone, the round sphere that Jules claimed was related to the Deities.
“Jules said we were done with them,” I whispered.
“Doesn’t mean these portals won’t work.”
My heart hammered at his words. The Deities had created this sphere. I walked over to it, ignoring the computer panel behind the portal. Slate was already advancing to the clawed controls, but I stopped at the smooth rock, my hand shaking as I thought about Jules.
I heard Slate’s warning but touched it regardless.
It was cold. My nose and cheeks burned, but I kept walking.
“Stay close,” someone beside me said, and I saw Dean, curled up like he’d been hurt.
“Yeera’s inside the next tunnel. I’ll go first, and you follow behind, moving to the right. Understood?” The voice was my daughter’s, and I wanted to shout a warning. Ask what she was doing, and where she was, but I was only a passenger on this ride.
“Do we talk or shoot?” Dean asked.
“Shoot.”
I returned to the island, my glove on the dark portal.
“Boss, what is it?”
“Jules is in trouble,” I told him.
“So are we, if we don’t find a way out.” Slate was right, but I couldn’t shake the tension I felt from what I’d just witnessed.
“Okay, let’s finish this and visit Shimmal. I think that’s where she was,” I said, hoping I was correct.
Slate was about to grab hold of the controls, but he stopped himself, waiting for me to do it. The same two red lights blinked on, the arms extended from the console, and I held the claws, taking a handful of calming breaths. All I could think about was Jules, but I pushed my fatherly worry aside, concentrating on Slate. He was my best friend, one of my
oldest allies, and without him, I’d have been dead half a dozen times over. He needed me.
Is this the control hub for your drone fleet?
Affirmative. The word imprinted in my mind.
Are the creators gone?
No response. The program didn’t know. It was only doing what it had been asked to by some ancient engineer. I pivoted. How many people have been removed and modified by the fleet?
Twelve thousand two hundred and ninety-two.
I kept my eyes closed, not letting the high number cause me to flinch. It could have been far worse.
Twelve thousand two hundred and ninety-three.
The new response shocked me. This meant the drones were active, and it had been my fault for sending them away again. Are you able to shut the operational network off?
Affirmative. We are the hub.
That was good. All I had to do was instruct it to follow through, but I had a lingering question I really wanted answered. I cracked my eyes open to see Slate standing close, his face scrunched in concern. I closed them again and asked my question. What was the purpose of activating the network of modified beings?
It waited a second, and the next words pressed into my mind.
Affirmative. Activating the network.
My eyes sprang wide, and I shook my head over and over, trying to tell it to stop. It was too late.
Slate went rigid, his face contorting in agony.
“Slate, are you okay?” I stepped away from him, releasing the controls.
His expression returned to normal and he grinned at me, a predator’s glint to his eyes. “I’m fine. Dean Parker. How I’ve waited for this moment.”
His gun rose, aiming directly for my face.
Twenty-One
The tunnels were once again smooth and rounded, suggesting to Jules that they’d been carved out with sharp cutting tools mounted to a drilling machine. The ceiling was only a foot above her head, and Dean’s parka hood brushed against it as they walked slowly toward the mad doctor.
Dean had pocketed the Locator after seeing that the red dot was in the adjacent cavern, and they waited, Jules trying to hear what was happening.
“It’s time to shine, Yeera. They wouldn’t listen to you when you were telling them about the Catoleels’ migrations shifts. They disregarded the fact that our oceans are rising far beyond what is natural. They’ll all pay.” Yeera cackled a laugh, sending shivers through Jules’ spine.
This wasn’t the original Yeera, and Jules knew that, but she needed to be stopped. It made her wonder if Carolyn Lauder had been abducted in the other Dean’s timeline.
Now wasn’t the time for speculation. It was time for action.
Jules lifted her hand, counting down from three on her fingers, and she dashed into the room. “Game’s over, Yeera!” she shouted, her finger resting beside the pistol’s trigger. She was prepared to shoot, but the Shimmali woman’s grin stopped her in her tracks.
“This is a surprise,” Yeera said. Her feet were planted wide, like she was bracing herself, and her smile faltered when Dean walked in behind Jules. “You’re supposed to be dead.”
“I guess it’s another thing you’re going to fail at today,” Dean told her.
Yeera tensed. Jules couldn’t see a gun on her, but it was probably concealed. Yeera was in her lab coat and snow pants, with her brown parka unzipped. She set a palm on the box-shaped unit centered in the ice room and flipped a switch. The device jolted to life, shaking the metal tray it was set on.
There had to be enough fuel inside it to blow this entire Core to nothing.
“What’s the plan, Yeera?” Jules asked. The woman was directly behind the explosive, which meant one misfire by her or Dean would potentially kill them all. She couldn’t take the risk. Not until Yeera was in the open. “Destroy the ice continent? Kill yourself in the process? What good will that do?”
“Child… you have no understanding of the world, or the universe. Every day, someone like me goes to their superiors and suggests irreversible changes are occurring. Shimmal has allowed too many people in over the last few decades. It all began with you, the humans.
“Sarlun has been a fool to trade so openly, to join this ridiculous endeavor of the Alliance of Worlds. All his energy has been on space.” She pointed to the ceiling. “Meanwhile, his own planet is suffering.”
Dean walked beside Jules, lowering his aim. “And you think that by destroying the ice, you’ll what? Help your people?”
“No, but I’ll be a cautionary tale. I’m creating a problem too large to ignore. Sarlun and his team will have to stop their reckless behavior and return their concentration to their own planet. Shimmal will be better for this.” Yeera’s delirious cries carried through the cavern. She walked out from behind the box, and Jules glanced at her feet. She had on plain boots with no ice picks.
“At what cost?” Jules stepped toward her. “The Catoleels?”
The name of the local creatures sparked something deep in Yeera, and she froze. “They will be a necessary sacrifice.”
Jules slid her gun to its holster. “You love those animals, don’t you? I could tell from the few minutes we interacted at their nest. You’ve cared for them for years. What you’re doing today isn’t your fault, Yeera.” Jules raised her hands in front of her chest, showing she wasn’t armed.
“What are you prattling on about?” Yeera asked.
“Were you ever abducted? Taken somewhere and returned home with the foggiest memory of an event you couldn’t articulate?” Jules kept her voice low, her expression compassionate.
There it was. A flicker of recognition. “How…? No one believed me, and… I ended up not trusting myself. Why do you speak of this?”
“Because my father is working on a solution. You’ve been modified by an alien race. It’s like a ticking time bomb. One minute you were Doctor Yeera, salvation to the Catoleels; the next you’re trying to destroy the entire region, your charges included. I know you’ve killed people. I’ve been to another Sub-Base camp. But there’s still time to make amends for your actions, Yeera.”
Jules took another step. It was a mistake.
Yeera shook, spitting out her words. “You know nothing, child!” She slammed her hand on the device, and it flashed red before beeping continuously. “This unit will heat up, and in five minutes, it will detonate. This is irreversible. You can kill me, but the damage is done.”
“And the other bombs?” Dean asked.
“They are all linked. They will also detonate.” Yeera smiled widely, and her hand flew behind her back. Jules ran for her, her spiked boots digging deep. Yeera fired her small gun as Jules struck her in the chest with a fist, knocking her down. A sharp pain pulsed in Jules’ leg, but she ignored it.
Yeera tried to overpower Jules, but she was a Gatekeeper, trained in hand-to-hand, and a moment later, the doctor was pressed face-first into the ice. Dean staggered over, pulling rope from his pack. They tied her up while Yeera shouted abuse at them.
Jules slid off the woman when she was confident the doctor was secure, and assessed her own leg. The pants were torn, and her thigh was burned by the pulse, but it was only a flesh wound.
The machine continued to beep loudly, and Jules feared there were less than four minutes remaining before it went off. They were going to die.
“I have an idea,” Dean said. He limped to the box, which was already steaming hot. Water dripped from the ceiling above it, hissing as it landed on the top of the unit.
“It better be a good one.”
____________
There were several things in life I was certain I’d never bear witness to. One was Slate aiming a pulse rifle at me, smiling as he pulled the trigger.
I ducked, letting my legs give way, and his pulse blasted into the wall across the room. He was always a far better fighter than me, but I used surprise to my advantage as I kicked his legs from under him. Slate landed on his back, his helmet striking the floor. It bounced, but he still hel
d on to the gun.
“Slate, think about what you’re doing. This isn’t you!” I said, rushing behind the sphere stone.
“Oh, but it is. I can see it all so clearly now. Taking Light from me. Making me feel guilty for killing Mae all those years ago, when she was the enemy. Always taking Magnus’ side when an argument arose. Now your demon of a daughter has brought him back. I’ll be pushed away again.” Slate climbed to his feet slowly. I couldn’t very well shoot him, but I needed to return to the central controls.
His words were like a slap in the face, even though it wasn’t the real Zeke Campbell spouting them. I sensed there would be no reasoning with him, so I gave in, trying to switch tactics. He’d ultimately defeat me in a fight, especially since I didn’t want to harm him, and my cautionary words would go unheeded.
I stared at the portal stone, wondering if I’d be able to make it work. Jules had the ability to travel through it by picturing the symbol for the destination, but I’d never attempted it. Plus, I’d caused enough trouble by sending the drones out, then activating all the countless abductees at once. Who knew what the repercussions were at this very moment?
“What are you going to do, Dean? Who will save you this time?” Slate bellowed a laugh, the voice sounding so foreign. He stormed closer, and I moved around the portal, feeling the stone calling me. But even if I could manage to operate it, I had no clue how to return. I didn’t know the symbol for this place, and I couldn’t leave Slate behind.
“I don’t need saving.” I tossed my pulse rifle across the room, drawing his attention. From behind the cover of the portal stone, I reached for my pistol, remembering a trick Magnus had taught me years before. They were a powerful tool, drawing so much energy to create the deadly pulses.
With a quick twist of the handle, the mechanism dropped out. The charges seldom drained, but in case they did, you could replace them in the middle of battle. We rarely carried the secondary ones with us, because we weren’t often caught in extending gunfights. Using my gloved fingers, I pried the casing from the charge, careful not to jolt myself with it.
The Survivors | Book 15 | New Beginning Page 20