by Deven Kane
He patted his jacket pocket for emphasis. “I can get us past the locks on the armory. Codes are codes.”
“See? There’s more than one way to skin a Hoarder.” Don nudged Amos, grinning wickedly. Connor winced but said nothing.
Garr tossed his pencil on the table. The simple gesture spoke volumes. “Okay, everyone. Let’s get this over with.”
Next stop: the alien heart of Hoarderville. Amos took a deep breath as that sunk in.
For once, his inner voice could suggest nothing worse.
Seventy
DOCTOR CAMPBELL PAUSED before exiting the Citadel for the evening, her hand poised over the security keypad. She ran through her mental checklist one last time. She knew Sterne would like nothing better than to replace her with his own hand-picked physician. She doubted he was capable of finding one as efficient as she was.
And she wouldn’t put it past the fawning Ethan to pull some stunt to make her appear vulnerable.
Idiots. The Givers need my expertise.
She jabbed an angry finger at the keypad. The door opened, and she raised her umbrella as protection against the rain.
The power outages painted the surrounding area with an odd patchwork palette—lights were visible in some buildings, while others were cloaked in darkness. The doctor shivered, clamping down on her over-active imagination.
The early-evening commute would be more sparse than usual, she predicted. The storm would urge the average Citizen to think twice about venturing out. The power outages added another depressing layer to the general sense of malaise in the Enclave after the terrorist bombings.
No thanks to the Infomedia. She pursed her lips in silent disapproval. Their fear-mongering may have helped with the Initiative, but they don’t know when to quit.
The doctor shivered as she crossed the lawn to the above-ground parking lot. The cold wind was partially responsible, but it was the Enclave’s haphazard blackout which she found the most disconcerting.
She put it out of her mind as she fumbled with her keys. She managed to open the door and ducked inside, muttering curses as she wrestled with her dripping umbrella.
The surviving Council members were already arriving for their precious meeting. She’d made use of a different staircase for her exit, having no desire to see their sanctimonious faces.
If you’ve met one Councilor, you’ve met them all.
She glanced up at the featureless Citadel as the engine roared to life. The floor-to-ceiling windows of the conference room were ablaze with welcoming light, in stark contrast to the darkened levels below.
She threw her vehicle into gear, scorning them all in her thoughts. Gouts of water fountained from her tires as she sped out of the parking lot.
If she spied the lurking invaders in her rear-view mirror, she never spoke of it.
Seventy-One
THE RUNNERS WAITED outside the Citadel, wet and miserable, until Garr was satisfied the last of the Council members had arrived. They crept within a few meters of the door, hiding in the decorative shrubs. Garr reached up with one hand to enter the access codes.
Without warning, the door burst open.
The Runners crouched low to the ground, hearts pounding, as the imperious figure of a middle-aged woman stalked out of the building. There were a few tense moments until she exited the parking lot, and Garr tried the codes a second time.
Aubrey breathed a relieved sigh as the door hissed open. One by one, the team scuttled into the Citadel. We made it over the first hurdle. The codes worked. We’re inside.
The interior of the Citadel was shrouded in darkness, broken here and there by miniature rectangles of light. The tiny beads of luminescence outlined the doorways, blinking in random sequence—white, red, blue, green.
Aubrey recognized the pattern, and a shiver ran up her spine. Just like an active Implant.
The dark floor was polished to an obsidian sheen which reflected the door lights, diffusing their colors to a fuzzy glow. Phosphorescent trails crisscrossed the floor, outlining various pathways leading away from the entrance.
It reminded Aubrey of an enormous spider’s web, which did nothing to steady her nerves.
They waited just inside the door until their eyes adjusted. Aubrey stiffened as a puff of humid air caressed her face. Garr looked over his shoulder, his face dimly lit by the ghostly lines in the floor. He signaled to Don—go left—and led his unit in the opposite direction.
Aubrey rose to a half-crouch, following Don along one of the spidery threads of light. Connor slipped past her, scampering on silent feet to catch up to Don. He tapped the big man on the shoulder, indicating a door nearest the outer wall.
Don cracked the door open, and after a quick moment’s reconnaissance, darted up the stairs on the other side of the portal. Connor followed, then Aubrey, with Megan bringing up the rear, easing the door shut behind her.
Connor moved with confidence as he led them through a convoluted maze of hallways, pausing at last in front of a sealed door. He consulted his list of codes, and his fingers danced over the keypad surrounding the door handle.
His efforts were rewarded by a soft click, and the door swung open under his touch.
Don and Aubrey crowded in behind him, to confront a bewildering array of viewscreens. Tiny beads of light crawled across the majority, moving in intricate patterns from screen to screen. Connor glanced at them with the first genuine smile Aubrey had ever seen on his face.
“All the data from the Initiative is processed here,” he whispered, indicating the winking lights. “Any Citizen with a node can be traced within seconds. The Division uses a lot of monitoring stations, but this is the nerve center. Everything flows through here.”
Don seated himself before the largest console. “So, all we have to do is short-circuit this monstrosity, and none of the nodes can be tracked. Does that give us free access, anywhere in the Enclave?”
Connor shook his head, his earlier enthusiasm fading. “The nodes are keyed to individual Citizens, but most vehicles have been outfitted with location devices as well. The Division will still be able to track vehicles in the Enclave—they just won’t be able to tell who’s inside. But anonymous passengers in a registered vehicle would be a dead give-away. The Peace Wardens would spot it in a second.”
“Then this had better work,” Aubrey said, relieved her voice sounded calm in her ears. “We’re going to need a quick escape route from the Enclave.”
Don pulled out a packet of tools and ducked beneath the console to pry it open. After a moment, the panel popped loose, and the big man crawled in.
“It’s a good thing there’s so many the power outages. Nobody should get suspicious when we pull the plug,” he said, his voice muffled inside the console. “That should buy us enough time to escape.”
Connor knelt and squeezed in beside Don. It took less than a minute for them to find the correct circuit board. Aubrey smiled to herself when she heard their triumphant—if muted—celebration.
She crouched, but the cramped space blocked her view. Connor unfolded a schematic, referring to it as he guided Don’s strategic vandalism. At his direction, Don clipped a few wires at seemingly random locations, muddling their trail of sabotage. There was a flicker of light inside the console, and Aubrey heard their satisfied exclamations.
She climbed to her feet, anxiously scanning the multiple screens on the console. Nothing changed. She opened her mouth, about to sound the warning, when the monitoring screens froze. The myriad specks of light pulsed in unison—once, twice, three times—before fading to black.
Don backed awkwardly out of the console, rising to his knees. “Mission accomplished. We’re invisible for now—but that won’t last.” Connor flashed him a thumbs-up, and they re-installed the console’s panel.
A quartet of active viewscreens drew Aubrey’s attention to a secondary console. The four screens—arranged two-by-two in a square formation—appeared to be dedicated to exterior surveillance of the Citadel’s gr
ounds. Aubrey watched as the images switched to a second set of viewpoints, then a third and a fourth.
“Rotating vantage points, covering the perimeter,” Aubrey muttered under her breath, grateful for Jane’s training. Her eyes widened as she realized what she was looking at.
“Getting out of here just got a little more complicated.” She managed to keep her voice down. “You’d better take a look at this, Don.”
Don scrambled to join her, seating himself before the console. Connor hovered over his shoulder, his face oddly lit by the glowing screens.
Aubrey pointed without speaking. In each camera view, a line of uniformed Peace Wardens stood at rigid attention, weapons held ready.
They kept a watchful vigil, standing in perfect formation, encircling the Citadel. None were stationed more than five meters from the outer walls.
The darkness and pouring rain did little to conceal the red glow emanating from beneath each visor.
“Trackers.” Don shook his head in disbelief. “They let us waltz right in, and then closed the gap behind us. It’s a classic strategy. We’re surrounded.”
He glanced at Aubrey, then over his shoulder at Connor. “They knew we were coming.”
Aubrey felt a constricting band tighten around her chest, and she found it difficult to breathe. She knew the symptoms.
Panic attack. Breathe, Aubs. This is no time to become the weak link.
She jumped despite herself at Connor’s startled outburst behind her. “Where’s Megan?”
The young Hoarder threw the door open and ran into the hall. Aubrey and Don followed, spreading out, searching for any sign of the missing Tracker.
Their efforts were short-lived and futile.
Megan was gone.
Seventy-Two
“WHAT’S WRONG?” AMOS hoped his voice didn’t betray his anxiety. His heart pounded in his chest, and he suspected the trembling in his hands was not a result of his rain-dampened clothing.
He was the tail guard in their tiny procession, following Sheila and Jane, with the Colonel leading the way. Their path led them roughly halfway around the outer edge of the Citadel’s windowless ground floor, following one of the phosphorescent trails.
A sharp turn to the left had brought them down a short passage, to the door of the armory.
But no further.
Amos heard Garr’s fingers tapping the keypad, over and over, to no avail. Amos kept a careful watch on their back-trail—he knew his role. But his curiosity was killing him, coupled with a sinking feeling of dread which he knew all too well. The numbing twilight inside the Givers’ stronghold was broken—barely—by the spider-web trails and digital fireflies outlining the armory door.
Jane shifted beside him, jarring him in the ribs for the umpteenth time. Neither she nor Sheila uttered a word, but he sensed their tension.
A lifetime supply of Hoarder weapons on the other side of this door. He sighed in frustration. And they might as well be a thousand kilometers away.
His hand sought the knife at his belt by instinct, and he grimaced with silent annoyance when his questing fingers met with nothing.
The glowing trail beneath him flickered—on, off, on, off—as did the blinking lights outlining the armory door. A moment later, the same pattern was repeated. On, off, on, off.
Without warning, the meager light source winked out, plunging the Runners into darkness.
None of them moved, each drawing shallow breaths as they listened for any betraying noise. It was Garr who broke the strained silence.
“Someone’s changed the codes,” he whispered, frustration evident in his voice. “Nothing else makes sense. I double- and triple-checked the list I copied from Connor. The codes have been altered—it’s the only explanation.”
“Should we try to find the other team?” Sheila whispered back. Amos found it disturbing to hear her voice, so close, and yet be unable to see her. “What if their security codes are obsolete as well?”
Amos felt another jolt as Jane’s elbow jammed him in the ribs again, hard. He felt her breath on his cheek as she hissed in his ear. “There’s someone else here—I can feel it.”
Amos felt the hair on the back of his neck crawl. He felt it, too. They weren’t alone.
Twin beams flared red in the corridor, blinding after the oppressive darkness. A pair of Trackers stood side by side, no more than two meters away. The glow of their scanners gave them the ghostly appearance of disembodied heads, floating in mid-air.
The optical illusion was short-lived. There was a flickering in the floor, and the lights returned, revealing the full extent of their predicament.
The taller of the two Trackers stepped forward, hefting his rifle into firing position. He cocked his head to one side, eyeing them. To his left, the second Tracker raised his weapon. The Runners were trapped, pinned against the unyielding armory door.
Mateo spoke first, his greeting terse. “Good welcome, Colonel. And to your team, as well. The Givers are expecting you.”
Logan advanced to stand beside him, his stoic expression all the more ominous in the eerie light. He kept his weapon trained on the captives, his eyes cold.
Amos glared at them, defiant. He heard Jane’s slow, steady breathing next to his ear. He knew her well enough to know when she was about to explode.
If you want us to beg for mercy, forget it. His heart skipped a beat, expecting the worst.
“I’ve got a theory about who changed the codes,” Garr said heavily, ignoring Mateo’s welcome.
“On your feet.” Logan’s voice was robotic and distant. “They’re waiting.”
Amos refused to comply, waiting for Garr’s lead. Sheila and Jane did the same. It’s your move, Colonel.
Mateo lowered his weapon a fraction. “Colonel, you should advise your team against any ill-conceived gesture of final defiance. Consider the facts. You are unarmed, while our weapons are the best the Givers can offer. In addition, twenty Trackers now surround the Citadel.”
Logan remained silent, his expression unreadable but his weapon speaking with eloquence.
The Runners held their positions. Garr matched Mateo’s gaze, stare for stare, unflinching.
It was the Tracker who broke the stalemate. “Logan and I—Trackers in full control of our enhancements—are more than a match for the four of you. The most logical choice would be to do as we say.”
He aimed his weapon at Garr’s head. “I will not ask a second time.”
Seventy-Three
COUNCILOR STERNE LEANED back in his leather chair, watching with heady anticipation as his fellow Council members took their seats around the conference table. Eight colleagues—men and women he’d known for years—with whom he’d debated, vehemently at times, and formed temporary coalitions when the situation called for it.
After this evening, none of them would be needed, in any capacity.
Sterne beckoned to Ethan, and his assistant bent down to listen. The murmur of small talk among the other Councilors masked what he said. “Everyone’s present and accounted for. Bring the Peace Wardens inside the Citadel, and post them at every exit. Nobody leaves, unless I say so.”
Ethan nodded, tucking his clipboard under one arm as he left to carry out his assignment. Sterne paused before calling the meeting to order, savoring the moment.
The oval table, heavy and imposing, was situated in the room’s epicenter. Behind him, the floor-to-ceiling windows showcased the Enclave in all its grandeur. Sterne had chosen the placement of his chair for maximum effect,
The thunderstorm was an unexpected bonus. The flashes of lightning added extra drama to his evening of triumph.
A polite beep sounded from the console before him. He glanced down to see a flashing pinpoint of light, confirming the signal he’d waited for. Sterne rose to his feet, reveling in the perfect symmetry of the moment.
Ethan returned through the door to his left, while at the opposite end of the room, a set of double doors opened to admit his special guests.
The Council members were startled, not expecting to see Mateo Reyes, herding his prisoners before him. The captured fugitives entered with their hands on their heads, sullen defiance etched on their faces.
Mateo ordered them to kneel, and under the threat of his weapon, the savages had no choice but to comply.
Flawless. Sterne clasped his hands behind his back. The stage has been set.
Seventy-Four
“WHERE DO YOU THINK you’re going?” Don seized Connor by the arm, restraining him. “Our orders were to disable the node-tracking system. We don’t know where Megan’s gone.”
Connor’s face contorted, but Don overrode his protest. “We can’t afford to waste time in a blind search, trusting dumb luck to find her.”
Aubrey put a hand on Connor’s arm, hoping to calm him.
“Megan’s already survived a lot,” she said, not going into the details. I almost killed her—but Connor doesn’t need to know that part. “She can handle herself.”
“There’s also twenty Trackers waiting just outside the Citadel.” Don dropped his grip. “Listen, Connor, I don’t plan on leaving without her, but we need to be smart about this. Did she say anything about what she’s up to?”
Connor took a deep breath, running a nervous hand through his hair. His initial panic had ebbed, and he seemed calmer. “We didn’t have much time to talk. It was mostly about how she doesn’t remember anything before . . .”
His voice trailed off, and then his eyes widened.
“Megan used to be a bodyguard for the Givers.” He looked at his companions with growing excitement. “She said her first memories began as a Tracker. The medical facility is on the top floor. What if she went there?”
Don said nothing. Aubrey knew he was turning over the variables in his mind.
“Garr’s counting on us to rendezvous with his team,” she said, hesitant to interrupt. “They’re hitting the armory first, then the conference room.”