Generation Z (Book 6): The Queen Unchained

by Meredith, Peter

  Deanna studied the ground as she darted away from the more populated streets. Soon, the wall loomed and she stopped to re-read the instructions so as not to miss the landmarks. Where the underbrush was thickest was a drainage culvert big enough for a man to crawl through. She dropped down into it and squirmed her way beneath the wall. The culvert kept going, but she stopped when she found a heavy, rusting plate of iron on one side of her. It looked as though it was bolted into the cement with corroded metal plugs each bigger than her thumb.

  The whole thing appeared as though it had been there for years, but it was a false front, an illusion. She pressed on the very center of the plate and with a click, it opened toward her, revealing a lightless little room built into the wall itself. Using her flashlight, Deanna scanned the gray cement walls, and the long 2x4s that made up the floor and ceiling.

  Had she not known their secret, she would have been baffled. The planks of wood were seamless and sturdy. Each was uncut, disappearing into the wall in front and behind as if the cement had been poured around them. There were no trap doors or false ceilings—no obvious ones at least. The two boards on the far right of the room could slide forward a bare eighteen inches. It was just enough room for Deanna to slip down into a shaft and draw the boards back over her head.

  In front of her was another tunnel; this one was so narrow that she had to turn sideways. It took only seconds for a minor case of claustrophobia to set in, and only a minute for it to become a major case. She was hyperventilating and about to scream when she discovered another tiny room. Compared to the tunnel, it felt like a mansion. Inside it were the main controls to the explosives Jillybean had rigged throughout the entire wall.

  It had been a huge undertaking hauling in that much dynamite, Semtex, PE4, C-4 and any other type of explosive she could get her hands on. It had taken her over a year, working in the dark, to prep her greatest accomplishment for destruction.

  Deanna was cold with sweat as she could almost feel the tons of cement looming over her head. It felt like it was pressing down on her. “It’s safe. Jillybean knew what she was doing.” Then why do I have to pee so badly? she thought as crept to a grid-like panel set on one wall. The switches for each zone were obvious and she flicked on the Stage 1 charges of Zone 225, which was located on a thousand-foot stretch of the northeast wall. It was the most obvious choice for a demonstration since the wall in that zone ran along a steep, almost cliff-like hill. Even without the wall, no one would consider attacking there.

  With sweat running from her long blonde hair, she then synced one of four handheld detonators to the charge—and that was it. If she wanted to, she could blow up that section of the wall right at that very second. Carefully, she turned the detonator off and leaned against the wall, breathing as though she had run a sprint.

  Getting out again was just as frightening as getting inside, though for a different reason. Now she was afraid that she would accidentally brush up against something and not just arm the detonator, but set it off as well. By the time she climbed out of the culvert she was limp from stress, but she couldn’t rest. The morning was getting on and soon her assistant, Shelley Deuso would knock on her door with her morning coffee.

  She hurried east, gazing up at the hill and the wall. A guard was ambling slowly along the walkway—there would be others, and they would all die. Deanna’s feet faltered. Was this something she could actually do? Murder four or five of her own people? People she knew? And for what? The chance to fight a battle that no one thought they could win?

  “The alternative is worse,” she told herself and took out the detonator. Only the one guard was in sight and that was for the best; maybe he would be the only one she murdered. Unless you wait until he’s out of the zone. The idea was as alluring as it was wrong. She had the sinking feeling that if she waited, more people would show up, making her wait even longer. Deep down, she knew she was looking for any excuse not to make the most difficult decision of her life.

  Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out the instructions. They were no longer needed and she tossed the piece of paper into a puddle, grinding it under her foot. Then she took out the detonator, took a deep breath and gazed down at it while her heart thudded like a heavy cowhide drum.

  “Stop putting it off. Just don’t watch.” She turned away and thumbed the arming switch and on popped a friendly little green light. “Green means go.”

  “Governor!”

  Deanna jumped, sucking in a guilty breath. A woman in a bathrobe with unbrushed hair and crazy round eyes charged up to her. “They’re attacking!”

  “Who? Who’s attacking?” she asked, hiding the detonator behind her back.

  It was a stupid question. “The Corsairs! They’re attacking.”

  The woman’s fear was contagious and without thinking, Deanna was running with her to the wall; the very wall she had been a second from destroying. She climbed the stairs and could almost feel the heat of the explosives through the concrete. Remembering the detonator, she turned it off and stuck it in her pocket just as someone yelled, “There she is! Someone grab her.” Even with a detonator in her pocket, Deanna didn’t think they were talking about grabbing her, and without a thought, she knocked aside a hand that had a hold of her sleeve.

  In seconds, she was up the stairs and on the walkway.

  The gray waters of Puget Sound seemed filled with Corsair ships coming at the island from all directions. She counted thirty of them, but there were more. Bells began ringing and people were yelling up and down the island. She strode through the gathering crowd without seeing the frightened people. Her mind was on the attack…and the bomb. Maybe she wouldn’t need it now. Maybe seeing the Corsairs in broad daylight would light a fire under them.

  “Where’s Wayne French?” she called out, as she moved south along the wall. It looked like the lead boats were heading toward the island’s small harbor. “Someone get me Wayne…”

  “I’m down here, Deanna.” He was below her on the ground; he seemed very small. “I’m afraid I have to put you under arrest.” Someone behind her clamped a heavy hand on her shoulder. Deanna turned and saw big Paul Daniels looking down at her. His heavy jaw was blue-black and in need of a shave.

  “I got her,” he declared.

  “Got me? What the hell is going on, Wayne? We’re being attacked and I have to say this is not the time for political games.”

  Wayne nodded, a strange sight seen from above. It was as though he were trying to sho her his bold spot. “This isn’t a game. We know the Black Captain has gotten to you. We know you plan on blowing up the wall.”

  How? was the first question that popped into her head. She didn’t dare ask that. “What on earth are you talking about? How do you know, whatever this is?”

  “Paul, get off her!” It was Veronica hurrying up from behind. She pushed Paul away and thrust a piece of printer paper at Deanna. “Everyone on the council found these this morning on their doorsteps. They were also posted around the island.” Deanna read:

  To my fellow citizens,

  I have kept silent for too long. The Governor has been secretly working with the Corsairs for months now. She tried to recruit me, promising to keep me safe from the Corsairs. I refused until she threatened to release embarrassing information about me. I’m sorry to say that I gave in.

  I helped to fake the kidnapping of her daughter so she could gain sympathy and strengthen her hold on the island. Her daughter is alive and well and living in Hoquiam like a queen.

  To hide her tracks, Deanna killed her accomplices Eddie and Gina Sanders. When Norris Barns got too close to the truth, she killed him, too. I am sorry to say that I helped in covering up these murders by planting the knife—I’m deeply ashamed of this. Now she has gone too far. She plans on blowing up the wall, an idea that she and Jillybean concocted before she left. She must be stopped before it’s too late.

  I am sorry

  X

  Deanna read this in a silent world. Hundreds of pe
ople stood watching her without saying a word. They didn’t know what to think. As a group, they were emotionally spent: murders, kidnappings, spies, assassins, trials, and now open war…every day it was something new and every day things grew worse. And here was this letter, written as if by one of them. It sounded like something from a soap opera, and at the same time it seemed perfectly in keeping with how things had been going for them for the last few weeks.

  They watched their governor, perfectly ready to throw a rope around her neck and hang her from the wall at the smallest sign of guilt. If Deanna even twitched incorrectly she would be dead in seconds.

  It was the spy who had written the letter, and Deanna marveled at how perfectly written it was. It struck just the right note, playing up the fear and jealousy in the average citizen, the contrition of the writer, and giving everyone a target for vengeance. Deanna looked up from the paper, thinking that she stood on the knife’s edge; if she didn’t handle things perfectly, her daughter would be doomed, the Corsairs would take over the island with ease, and the entire population would be enslaved—but only if they found the detonator on her.

  “Do not be fooled!” she cried, holding the paper high overhead. “You are being tricked by the assassin. Look out there! The Corsairs are attacking, making this the perfect time to sow division, and that’s what this letter is all about.” In anger, she smashed the paper with her fist, crumpled it up and threw it over the wall. “If you don’t believe me, you can search me if you want! Come on, Wayne, get up here and search me. I don’t have a bomb on me.” She opened her jacket and showed that she wore nothing but a sweater beneath.

  The crowd buzzed as Wayne called for Paul to search her. His large hands went up and down her body as she held her breath. Although Veronica was right there giving him the stink eye, he was thorough and didn’t miss a thing. He held up the tool kit and described the contents accusingly. “Those were Jillybean’s tools,” Deanna explained. “I was on my way to feed her monsters and thought I should return them.”

  Before anyone could bring up the fact that she wasn’t anywhere near the school, she went on loudly, “Think about it, Wayne. I’m the only one wanting to fight the bastards. I’m the only one who thinks we have a chance at winning. And we can! Look out there!”

  The crowd had momentarily forgotten the Corsairs but now they dutifully gazed out at the black ships tearing at them. Someone started to blubber.

  “Don’t you dare cry!” Deanna commanded. “We will turn back this attack. We will destroy any boat that gets within a hundred yards of our shores. The only reason they think this will work is because they think we’re weak. They think we’re divided, but we are not! Wayne, send whoever you want to find a bomb or whatever. The rest of us are going to win this war!”

  Someone asked, “Is there a bomb?”

  “Of course not,” Deanna scoffed. “But even if there was one, would we just give up? Hell no! We would fight even harder than ever. I want everyone to get to their battle stations!” Her voice carried halfway across the island, and for once her people rushed to do what they were told.

  Deanna turned to Veronica, a stunned, giddy expression on her face. “You see? All they need is proper leadership.”

  Veronica was looking at her with suspicious eyes set like ice over a fake smile. “What did you put in that paper? I saw you put something in it.”

  “Insurance,” Deanna answered quickly. “But it looks like we won’t need it. We’re going to crush those fools.”

  Chapter 18

  Puget Sound, Washington

  In midair, Emily Grey turned so that she was looking back down the length of the Dead Fish. The torpedo that was chasing after them was too small and too low in the water for her to see. The Corsair ship was another matter altogether. It was coming up hand over fist with shocking speed.

  With a thousand-pound undead creature hanging on the keel, their own speed had turned sluggish. They labored through the water, shuddering over the light waves instead of gliding lightly across them.

  For a long second, Emily was poised in midair, then the cool water seemed to rush up and swallow her as the fifty-foot ship rode over her, slamming her down into the murk where she braced her body behind the ten-foot boathook. With a cycloning curtain of bubbles spinning around her, she could hardly see the beast as it rushed at her.

  It was just a large grey blur hanging from the fin keel. The best she could do was to aim the boathook at the center of it and hold on as tight as she could. It wasn’t just the zombie bearing down on her, it was the entire weight of the ship. Her hands were too weak to keep their hold on the pole under that much strain, and she slid right down it until her feet struck something solid.

  Her left foot was on a portion of the keel, while her right was on the zombie’s hip. The head of the boathook was buried deep in the creature’s bulbous, frog-like neck. In slow motion, or so it appeared to Emily, the beast raised a giant hand and snapped the pole in two.

  Emily fell into the keel with the rushing water doing everything it could to peel her away and send her spinning in the boat’s wake. But she held on, as did the creature. It had a hold of the keel with one huge hand, which she kicked and stomped in vain. Her attempts were so pitiful that it didn’t even notice her, or so she guessed since it hadn’t reached through the water with its other hand to crush the life out of her.

  Time was flying by and yet, she didn’t feel the desperate need for air building in her; she was totally focused on that hand. Giving up on the stomping, she jabbed the broken end of the boathook down into the webbing of the creature’s hand between the thumb and pointer finger. She had meant to get under the hand, and had to try again. This attempt worked and she threw her entire weight onto the pole. She strained with everything she had, her muscles quivering with the effort.

  It was too much for the pole, which broke again, sending her tumbling into the face of the zombie.

  With the murk and the bubbles, it took the creature a moment to realize that a human girl was climbing on its face. She was going crazy trying to get away from it, while at the same time, it went berserk, lashing out with its teeth and trying to grab her with both hands. The Dead Fish was free at last and it spurted ahead, sending Emily and the zombie rolling and spinning beneath the hull. Up and down changed places a dozen times in a blink of an eye, even so, Emily kept her mind focused on the swim ladder at the back of the boat. It was her only chance to get back on board.

  Kicking away from the zombie she made a desperate lunge for the platform, and by a miracle, she caught hold of it with both hands. She held on long enough to take a single breath, then a giant paw ripped down her body, tearing her clothes and her flesh. It lost its grip, but so did she.

  “Emily!” Gunner gave a hoarse shout and tossed a rope to her. It was as good a throw as anyone could expect from a dying man. She took two strokes to get to it and grabbed it with both hands just as the slack in the rope was taken up. It was like trying to hold onto a whip. The rope snaked right through her fingers and then she was all alone with a zombie and a speeding torpedo. Gunner didn’t slow the Dead Fish. He knew that he wasn’t going to outrun the torpedo and wanted the explosion to occur as far from Emily as possible.

  But Emily wasn’t done fighting yet. The Corsair torpedo was curving in an arc towards the Dead Fish. If she could cut it off and get to the receiving end of the detonator, she could disable it. To that end, she set off with powerful strokes, slowed by her clothes which pulled at her arms and weighed down her legs. She was gasping in no time.

  Breathe, she told herself. Find your stroke, breathe and ignore the pain. With every kick, there was a sharp etching pain behind her right knee. Where the zombie got me. Damn, I’m going to die. The thought killed her stroke, sucked the wind out of her and made her miss the torpedo by eight feet. The ugly contraption went whizzing by.

  “No,” she whispered. The torpedo was only a hundred yards away from the Dead Fish’s stern. She couldn’t look. Turning
away, she was shocked to see how close the Corsair boat was. Then she saw why. It had originally darted out from a little cove and, in order to get away from the torpedo she had fired, the boat actually had to steer at it.

  It was only just then finally swinging wide, trying to escape southward with a torpedo eating up the distance. Both ships were seconds from being destroyed. Right before the first torpedo exploded, she closed her eyes. The flash from the detonation lit up the darkness behind her lids and the sound was a great THOOOM that she felt in her chest.

  When she opened her eyes, the Corsair ship was a burning hulk. As she tread water, she waited for the second torpedo to explode, and waited, and finally looked back to see the Dead Fish floating languidly, actually quite casually under the circumstances. Gunner had managed to drop its mainsail, and could do nothing else.

  “What happened to the torpedo?” she wondered aloud as she began an easy breaststroke towards the boat. Thankfully, the current was carrying it back towards her and, to her amazement, she saw the Corsair torpedo fetched right up against its side.

  “Could you switch that detonator off before you come aboard?” Gunner asked, in a wheeze.

  She did more than that, she brought the whole thing on board. She gazed down at it. “Why didn’t it work?”

  “It’s a manual detonator. You have to press the button to make it go boom and whoever had the detonator got killed before they could blow it.” He took an unsteady breath. “We need to get out of here in a hurry. They might have radioed our position.”

  After setting her sails as they had been, and telling Neil what had happened—the Harbinger had hurried back as fast as it ever could and was now bobbing fifty feet away—the two boats raced north, side by side. Their position had been announced, as evidenced by the half dozen black ships streaming into view. They were looking for one ship and not two, which allowed the Dead Fish to escape from the narrow inlet and out onto the Sound.