“We could collapse the whole zoo on top of him, and if the Quinns are down there, they’d be under a mountain of dirt and everything that lives inside. We’ve kind of got them where we want them, if you think about it.” But Faith knew the Quinns had a living, breathing ace up their sleeve.
“We both know we can’t do it,” Dylan said, sighing as he ran his hand through thick black hair. “We’d never be able to live with ourselves if we left Jade down there.”
“I know,” Faith said. “We’ll have to find another way.”
They began walking around the perimeter of the zoo, searching for the entrance, where they would also find the light-rail elevator. Maybe if they were lucky, Faith thought, they’d stumble onto some sign of Jade or the Quinns that would give them the upper hand.
The sound of screeching filled the air and both Faith and Dylan ducked down next to a tree.
“Was that what I think it was?” Faith asked skeptically.
“Sounded like a monkey or a screaming six-year-old.”
They peered into the trees overhead and waited. A few seconds later, shadows moved above and something leaped between two trees.
“Yeah, we got monkeys,” Faith said. “I’m guessing those aren’t the only animals living up here. They must have just let them all go when Portland emptied out.”
Faith thought of the more dangerous animals, the lions and the tigers and the bears, and hoped they’d long ago died off or moved into the mountains to breed in the wild.
“Come on, let’s get a closer look at the elevator,” Dylan said. “It’s gotta be that building there.”
Dylan pointed at a brick structure standing next to the entrance to the zoo. It was outside the fence line across from an open parking lot half filled with abandoned cars, two zoo buses, and the remains of what had been a small traveling fair of some kind. Three lifeless kiddie rides sat idle and rusting from decades of northwest rain: a mini Ferris wheel, a carousel, and a roller coaster with four cars painted and shaped like zoo animals.
“Sad kiddie rides,” Faith said, feeling a pang of melancholy. The whole scene looked like the tattered remains of a broken childhood. She was also thinking about how close they were getting to the most dangerous people in the world. Two of them were very nearly indestructible maniacs with the power to move just about anything with their minds. The third was plotting some kind of destruction that might, for all Faith knew, terminate millions of people.
“Let’s do some housecleaning before we move in,” Faith said. “Delete Hawk’s messages and log out of the connection. Let me see the two-way.”
Dylan nodded and dug into his backpack, tossing a few stale Mike and Ikes into his mouth. He handed Faith the two-way radio and went to work deleting files and logging out of the Vulcan Tablet.
“Clay, you there?” Faith asked.
“You’re supposed to nudge first. I thought we talked about this,” Dylan said, only half joking.
Clay returned a second later, his chirpy voice turned up louder than Faith was comfortable with.
“What’s up?” Clay asked.
“How do I turn this thing down?” Faith asked nervously.
“Turn the twisty knob on the tip there,” Dylan said, but he was only halfway paying attention as he worked while the monkeys kept screeching overhead.
Faith turned the volume knob down and pressed the talk button again. “Listen, Clay, we’re in what you might call enemy territory. Do you know where the zoo is?”
A pause, and then the chipmunk voice was back.
“Copy that. I know the place.”
Faith waited a beat. Am I sure about this? She decided she was and gave Clay an order that she hoped might be of some use. When she was done, she added a final detail.
“Wait until after dark to move, then be ready. Got it?”
Another static pause.
“Roger that. Project under way, making good time.”
Dylan had finished the work on the Tablet, effectively cutting ties with Hawk. He put the Vulcan away and slung the pack over his shoulders.
“Let’s leave the two-way out here. He knows what he needs to know. There’s nothing else left to say and it’s too risky carrying it around this close to a fight.”
“Agreed,” Dylan said. “Now let’s go check out that elevator shaft.”
They skirted the side of the parking lot where the rides were sitting, moving between the trees that surrounded the zoo. The monkeys kept screeching, leaping from tree to tree as Faith and Dylan got closer.
“I don’t think they like visitors,” Faith said, but Dylan just shrugged it off as they arrived across from the brick structure that housed the elevator. Between them lay a slab of pavement thirty feet across, dappled with broken light from the setting sun.
“Wind is up,” Dylan said, watching the shadows sway back and forth on the surface of the parking lot. “Come on, let’s see what we’re dealing with.”
Faith wasn’t so sure they should venture out into the open, but she was just as curious as Dylan was. All their intel said Hotspur Chance was hiding at the bottom of the elevator shaft. It was closer than Faith had ever been and it scared her a little bit.
“Maybe we should wait until it’s darker so we’d have more cover.”
Faith hated feeling hesitant, but heading out into the open and blowing their cover sounded like a bad idea.
“We can wait if you want, but I think we should go now. I’m getting a bad feeling about these monkeys. If they know we’re here, maybe someone else does, too.”
“And the longer we wait the more time they might have to prepare,” Faith agreed.
Faith took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, centering her emotions and clearing her mind.
“You ready?” Dylan asked.
“Yeah, I’m ready. Let’s do it.”
Dylan went first, Faith followed, and they made it to the elevator doors without so much as a sound from one of the monkeys. This felt wrong to Faith, as if they’d been scared off or led away. Dylan went into the alcove that held the elevator door, but Faith stayed out in the open long enough to take a better look around. From here Faith had a closer view of the zoo grounds, which were overrun with weeds and wild flora.
“Um, Dylan,” she said. “We have company.”
Dylan turned from the elevator, moved quickly back to where Faith stood, and put a hand on her shoulder, instinctively trying to move in front of whatever threat they were about to face.
“Better sharpen up the ninja moves,” Faith warned. “She’s fast.”
An elephant had wandered in close to the steel bars surrounding the zoo, its head moving in a slow-motion, back-and-forth pattern.
“You’ve got to be kidding me. They left the elephant?”
“And the monkeys. Don’t forget about the monkeys.”
“What is wrong with these people?” Dylan asked, pulling Faith into the shadows of the alcove. The monkeys began howling again, filling the trees with chaotic noise that sent a chill down Faith’s spine.
“Something isn’t right.”
Those were the last words Faith said before the elephant lifted off the ground, its horn blowing in fear. A split second later the elephant was standing on the pavement in front of the alcove, staring at Faith and Dylan.
“I guess we can go ahead and pulse,” Dylan said, flexing his hands as the muscles in his forearms tightened. “They know we’re here.”
The elephant started to move toward the half-empty parking lot and when it was out of the way, Faith saw something she wasn’t entirely sure she was ready for: Wade and Clara were walking slowly toward the elevator. Their confidence was one of the weapons they used against anyone who tried to stand in their way: the focus, the steely eyes, the assurance of their stride. These were two people you messed with at your own risk.
“Stay close,” Faith said. “And I don’t mean stand next to me. I mean close. I won’t retreat into myself if you won’t.”
She looked at Dyl
an, her gaze melting into his, and felt that special something again, as if she could move the whole world off its axis with the power of her mind.
“I won’t leave, I promise,” Dylan said. He picked up the first thing he saw—a pickup truck that hadn’t been started in years, and sent it rolling sideways across the pavement, sparks flying off metal. It crashed into Clara first, then Wade, knocking them over like bowling pins before it smashed a hole through the metal fence surrounding the zoo. It wouldn’t be long before whatever animals remained inside were roaming the streets of downtown Portland.
Faith followed suit, flying overhead into the open space and picking up three more cars, sending them into a swirling, spinning tornado of metal and firing them all at once toward Clara and Wade. It felt good to unleash her power, to let her aggressions run free, and she was already picking up the mini Ferris wheel as Wade and Clara dodged the incoming cars. In nothing flat Faith had the Ferris wheel turned sideways in midair, spinning like a helicopter blade. Clara had flown up close to Faith, unholstering what looked like a Luger. Faith sent the spinning wheel flying toward Clara and heard bullets ping off the metal chairs.
“Incoming!” Dylan yelled as he watched a zoo bus hit Faith in the legs, sending her spinning out of control.
Faith tumbled head over heels into the zoo until she crashed through a fence and fell twenty feet into the lion’s den. When she stood, the roller coaster and the carousel were both coming directly toward her, landing with crushing force as she shot into the air and searched the sky for Dylan.
“Keep this up and your little friend is finished,” Clara yelled, holding out her Tablet for Faith to see. “Tap of the finger is all it takes and Jade’s gone.”
Faith was in a fighting lather, her brain working at record speed as the tendril thoughts of her mind wrapped around Clara’s Tablet and pulled it from her hand. The Tablet sailed through the air like a Frisbee and vanished into the setting sun.
“Really?” Clara said, eyebrows darting up and her chin wagging to one side annoyingly. Clara’s scars only added to her brutal beauty, blending right in with her short, cropped blond hair and piercing stare. The only thing about Clara’s face that didn’t have any fight in it was her pouty lips, which seemed too soft for the package they were attached to.
For a split second Faith felt as though she and Dylan might have taken the upper hand, but then the voice of Hotspur Chance echoed through the zoo audio system and she knew everything was about to change.
“Your needless skirmish has the capacity to draw attention from officials in the Western State. I’d like to avoid that. Jade is fine. She’s bolted to the floor by a chain and I am holding a revolver, but she’s unharmed. Things could change at any moment: Jade is fine. Jade is dead. Only one word, but I hope it sends the appropriate message.”
Dylan drifted closer to Faith until they were back to back, keeping their eyes on Wade and Clara. Wade had taken an interest in the elephant, lifting it off the ground and setting it back inside the zoo.
“No more excitement. No more trouble,” Hotspur said, and this time there was an edge to his voice Faith hadn’t heard before. He was showing some emotion of his own, a pinch of anger that touched the sky.
Everyone glided to the parking lot and stood staring at one another. Wade was the first to walk forward, all swagger as usual, smiling as if he’d just bitten into a crispy piece of bacon.
“I’d gladly go toe-to-toe right now if the old man wasn’t so hell-bent on doing things his way,” Wade said. He was staring down at Dylan, their faces not two inches apart.
“I never listened to my old man,” Dylan said. “I fight my own battles.”
Wade looked as if he was ready to take the bait, jaw clenching against those high cheekbones, and Faith worried for Jade.
“You could just let us have Jade and we could leave. We’d do that,” Faith said, turning to Clara. “We’d leave and never come back.”
This was a lie, of course. Faith had no intention of allowing Hotspur Chance to go ahead with any kind of plan that involved mass murder on a global scale.
Clara moved a little closer, the four of them now all in a gang near the entrance to the elevator.
“I really wish you wouldn’t have sent my Tablet halfway to the ocean,” Clara said, inching closer to Faith. “Always with the annoying gestures, Faith. One day you’re going to push me too far.”
Faith did some stepping forward of her own, coming face-to-face with the person she hated most in the world.
“You kill Jade, I kill you. She better stay alive.”
Clara flinched for a split second, overcome by the supremacy in Faith’s voice, but then she turned to the elevator and rested a hand on a revolver Faith knew was loaded with titanium bullets.
“After you, Princess. Hotspur Chance wants to see you, so he’s going to see you. After that all bets are off.”
Faith had thought it was impossible to hate two people this much, but looking back and forth between Wade and Clara nearly took her breath away. The heat of her frustration very nearly made her forget all about Jade and pick these two up off the ground, slam their heads together, and bury them in the forest outside the zoo. She turned to Dylan for the briefest of seconds and saw that he was staring at her.
“Don’t give them any power over you,” he said, and she knew exactly what he meant. She had to keep her cool. She couldn’t become like them, vengeful and mean.
Wade demanded both the backpacks and Dylan and Faith had no choice but to give them up. There went the Vulcan and the Tablets and the Mike and Ikes.
“You know putting us both down there is like trying to hold a couple of nukes, right?” Dylan asked as Wade used his mind to force the elevator doors open. “If things get crazy, you’re going to wish you weren’t trapped underground with me. With her.”
When Dylan said “with her” he was looking at Faith and his meaning was crystal clear: I can’t control Faith Daniels. No one can.
“Down the shaft, pretty boy,” Wade said. “You don’t keep the old man waiting. It makes him unpredictable in the worst possible way.”
A few seconds later, they were all four floating down into the side of a mountain, 260 feet into the earth in a shaft lit by the light of Wade’s Tablet. The elevator was missing, but the slack cables remained, dancing slowly back and forth as they brushed past. Clara was above them, flying down last, but Wade was floating down at the same level as Faith and Dylan.
“He’s a single pulse, you guys know that,” Wade said. “So we can’t let you in the same room with him. Too risky. He’s got questions, you’ve got answers. Just remember: we’ve got the girl, and she’s one thought away from a broken neck.”
Wade let the cold efficiency of those words sink in as he stared at Faith and Dylan.
“When this is done, we’re finishing our business. The four of us. No running, no backing down. Right, Clara?”
Clara drifted down into Faith’s line of sight and tapped her hand on the gun in its holster.
“I’m up for that.”
So that was how it was going to be, Faith thought. Regardless of how things played out with Jade and Hotspur, these two idiots wanted a fight to the death in the service of their own egos. With the entire Western State at stake, hundreds of millions of people, all they could think about was being the two top dogs in whatever rubble remained.
They continued on, farther under the surface of the earth, landing on a platform where a sleek train sat under a row of yellow lights. Faith thought again about whether it would be worth it to end it all right here, right now. She could pick up the train with her mind, bash it over and over again into the ceiling overhead, send a million pounds of dirt down on top of them all. Jade, if she was down here, would perish. Hotspur Chance, Wade, Clara, Dylan. They’d all be gone. But the threat, whatever it might be, would also be gone. And Meredith had made the threat sound as if it was bound to take a lot more than a few lives.
“You mind telling us wh
ere we’re going?” Dylan asked.
They boarded the train, and Clara talked.
“Long before we arrived on the scene, he built this place. It’s kind of insane. You’ll see.”
Faith thought about saying Hotspur Chance had also made sure everyone who knew about it was dead, but that might have revealed too much. How would Faith know a thing like that? Because Hawk was on the inside, gathering data.
The train pulled away, gliding on a track as if it was still in service and always had been. A moment later the train stopped abruptly, lurching everyone forward.
“What the hell?” Wade asked. He tapped something into his Tablet. “Train stopped. What’s up?”
Faith looked at Dylan. Hawk did that. He stopped the train. He’s getting closer.
A pause, and then a voice as the train started moving again.
“Talk like an adult and people will treat you like one,” Hotspur said, his slithery voice echoing through the nearly empty train.
Wade obviously couldn’t stand Hotspur Chance.
“Moving again. There soon. Hang tight.”
Wade looked at the rest of the group as if he was really sticking it to the man.
“What are you, nine?” Clara asked. “It serves no purpose to piss him off like that.”
“Oh, there’s a purpose. It makes me feel better.”
Clara rolled her bright blue eyes as the train came again to a stop and the doors opened. It appeared to have stopped in a location that was not a regular destination, but instead a ladder leading down to a service point.
Wade went first, then Dylan, Faith, and finally Clara.
“Looks like Wade’s running the show,” Faith shouted up to Clara, hoping to get further under Clara’s skin and drive a wedge between her and Wade. Clara responded by putting her boot into Faith’s head. Faith’s neck snapped sideways then back again. The narrow way down was dark and full of shadows, so she couldn’t see whether Clara was smiling.
“Cheap shot,” Faith said.
“How about you shut your mouth and keep moving?” Clara said.
When they reached the bottom Wade flung open a white door and motioned everyone inside. A long corridor awaited them with openings along the sides. Faith saw cameras moving near the ceiling.
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