The Tenth Legion (Book 6, Progeny of Evolution)

by Mike Arsuaga

  The imperious and calculating face of the Miriam, familiar to Lorna from the portraits in the mansion surfaced in her mind, illuminated like a museum display. Having become familiar with the cold, strong-willed eyes, accompanied by the firm set of the wide mouth, Lorna understood how she could wear down the resistance of someone who wanted to please his beloved.

  “The second I agreed, I had regret.” Ed continued. “Rushing to the clinic, I arrived too late. Anticipating my concession, she’d had everything expedited through her personal servants.”

  Lorna pictured a Chinese dowager empress, entrenched in palace politics for decades, with a retinue of attendants whose positions in the household depended on the maintenance of her status and wellbeing.

  “When I arrived, the procedure was complete,” he said. “I’ll never forget the expression of triumph on her face. There’s never been a day when I don’t think about what happened. But this is the irony. Over time, she, not I, experienced the brunt of the guilt.

  “Life between us was never the same. After a few years, she descended into a world of prescription drugs. In the last years, I believe they became what allowed her to face life. We took separate bedrooms. I forgave her as well as myself, but the regret of what happened never let go. On her deathbed, she lamented the loss—no, murder—of our daughter.

  “That’s how I know,” Ed concluded.

  Lorna laid her hand on Ed’s forearm. He was right. Wondering what the twins would have grown up to be, she’d spend a lifetime wallowing in guilt. “Then we’ll do something else,” she said, clamping down on his arm for emphasis. “We’re a family.”

  “We’re a family,” he echoed.

  Putting her arms around him, she allowed herself to enjoy the warmth of his embrace, muttering under her breath, “Cithara, help us.”

  * * * *

  “What do we have to do?” Ed demanded from the image on the monitor. Two months had passed.

  “We’re not sure,” Doctor Kelso replied. “The embryos didn’t survive the voyage. In zero gravity, bone development nearly ceases. Upon landing, what development occurred couldn’t support the fetus. I believe that tells us what we need to know.”

  “Okay, I understand pregnant females are unwise to attempt the trip if they value the unborn children, but what about youngsters?”

  “The data’s incomplete, but every indication is no hybrid younger than twenty years old can safely make the voyage. Pre-emergents cannot go until after they come out.”

  Ed dropped his head in despair. Then the Chairman took control. Raising upright, he said, “Keep up the good work.” With a quick, wrist-snapping gesture, he terminated the meeting.

  Lorna took his hand. They walked to the Spartan bedroom, the place where everything had begun for them, and surveyed the overlook of the harbor. The supply ship navigated toward the accustomed mooring. A security launch provided escort.

  “Valeria arrives today on the jet with Cynthia,” Ed announced with cheer he apparently didn’t feel.

  “That leaves only Ethan back in Florida?” Lorna asked.

  “Yes, along with his family and Toby’s. They’ll join us later this month.”

  Lorna shook her head in mild dismay. “The way Wendy and Jamie flit back and forth between here and Orlando, you’d never suspect we were up to our butts in trouble.”

  There was a knock on the door sill. Lorna and Ed turned to see Ulbert. “Sir,” the diminutive man said, alarm in his voice. “You must see this.” Picking up a remote, he turned on the monitor.

  The set of GNN’s most popular talk show took shape with the regular female moderator seated in the middle of a generously cushioned wrought iron couch. A man sat on either side of her. Lorna recognized the president of General Electronics.

  “I guess they’re trying to repair their image after all the heat they took about the virus.” Lorna suggested.

  “I don’t think so,” Ed replied. “Listen.”

  The Gen-El executive beat the drum again about the cover up of the discoveries at Oom, accusing CI of plotting to save The Others while abandoning the rest of humanity.

  “He’s not saying anything different,” Lorna said.

  “True, but the problem is who speaks, not what’s being said. He’s not a conspiracy whacko. Many will believe him. Moreover, he has the resources to keep repeating the message across all media streams. Imagine being exposed to repetitions of the same song no matter where you go. You may hate it, but hear it enough and you’ll be humming the tune. You can’t help yourself.”

  “I think they call that brain-washing.”

  The same day, the first demonstration took place in Orlando, a couple of dozen people carrying handmade signs. They broke up after the police informed them they lacked the proper permits. The following day they returned with permits and twice as many protestors.

  “It’s begun,” Ed muttered solemnly.

  Cynthia and Valeria took adjacent rooms at the end of the wing. The rooms were small, with a shared bath, lacking walk-in closets, but each commanded a view of the pool area along with the lake beyond. Best of all, each had a patio and private entrance, ideal for discreet entertaining.

  “We should look in on the girls,” Lorna said.

  Ed glanced up from the report he read. “I know,” he said. “I feel guilty, too. We haven’t spoken since they arrived last week.”

  Lorna walked behind him, massaging his shoulders. “Well, it’s not like we haven’t been busy. I think they understand.”

  Ed smiled. “I doubt they noticed. With all the young people around to keep them company, they have other things in mind.”

  Lorna smirked. At thirty, Cynthia had passed the first ten years after emergence. Her hormones began to calm down. Among hybrids, this process didn’t exist. On the brink of adulthood, Valeria endeavored to make the most of her youthful years. Her adventurous nature placed little outside her range of appetite for experimentation.

  “I still think we should see what they’re up to,” Lorna said.

  “I’m tied up with the new agreement for supplying power to the grid. Why don’t you go ahead? I’ll catch up later.”

  Lorna cut down the main hallway, past the mahogany-and-gold sweep of the double staircase, under the massive glittering chandelier to the hallway she sought, remembering how complicated the place’s floorplan had seemed at first. A lot had changed. After becoming head of security, she’d learned every square foot. Stateside, she studied the floorplans. On the island, she verified them by personal inspection. Venturing beyond the layout of the rooms, she’d memorized the mansion’s hidden network of ventilation ducts, utility passageways, void spaces, and obscure entrances.

  She used the trip to visit the girls as an opportunity to continue the project. Traveling down a utility passageway that paralleled the hallway, she ended up at a slide panel opening close to Cynthia’s room. An air current brushed the fine hairs of her exposed skin. Odd how none of the other passageways she’d explored had a draft. Nearby, Lorna spied a wood panel not on the plans, just the sort of thing she searched for.

  After notating the discrepancy, she slid the unrecorded panel back, stepping from the dim and drafty hallway of plumbing and electrical conduits into the back of a closet. Cedar tongue and groove covered the walls. Cynthia’s wardrobe of dresses hung all around. Pushing aside hangers full of the garments with their cloying flowery scent, Lorna took a moment to peek into the room.

  Seeing the space empty, she had started to retreat into the darkness to approach in a more conventional way, when the girls arrived at the doorway. While Lorna fumbled with the panel, they entered the room. Abandoning the effort to close the wood rectangle, she peeked through the brief opening the closet door offered.

  Valeria entered, laughing and spinning her way to a chaise lounge. Tan arms swept a wide, graceful arc. The yellow, pleated beach skirt flared, showing all of her legs, along with her white bikini panties. Upon reaching the lounge chair, she dropped into it, laughi
ng. “Oh my dear, we’ve had so much fun. I don’t want today to ever end.” The deep voice, uncommon in one so young, filled the room.

  Her tone crossed the room with a raspy, subdued passion. She lay back in the chair on her spine, legs stretched out in front, feet apart, knees together. The large eyes, alive and expectant in the narrow face, stared at Cynthia.

  “Your day has only begun,” Cynthia’s voice said from somewhere out of sight, stepping into Lorna’s line of vision. A white terry cloth beach blanket, matching the milky flesh underneath, wrapped the six foot frame. Little more than head and ankles showed. The pitch-black hair was tied off with a red band in a vertical column. The hair above the band spilled over, radiating in all directions like a fountain of crude oil.

  “I’m so glad you thought of showering at the pool,” Valeria said.

  “I am, too.” Cynthia let the towel fall to the floor, standing naked in front of Valeria, legs apart, arms akimbo. A patch of raven hair at the junction of her thighs stood out against the chalky complexion. Her firm body blended white marble and vanilla ice cream in a metaphysical combination of hard and white with melt in the mouth sweetness. Shoulders held back showed whispers of rippling muscle under the smooth soft skin. Her buttocks and legs tensed as if preparing to run down a hapless prey. Lorna wondered if the prey wasn’t the young hybrid inclined on the lounge chair.

  She needn’t have worried.

  Valeria smiled knowingly, wantonly. “We left many unhappy boys behind at the pool,” she intoned throatily, lifting an arm for assistance in rising.

  “That’s their problem,” Cynthia answered. The fingers of the pale hand interlocked with those of the darker one.

  They walked arm-in-arm to the bed.

  Valeria was hairless from the neck down. A laser procedure, popular in South America, had permanently removed every follicle. She walked on the balls of her feet, giving her slender butt an uplifted appearance from behind, exposing the pink, meaty lips of her sex. The chignon, rigid as cast gold, rode the back of her head.

  At the bed, they embraced. Cynthia’s black aureoles pressed hard onto Valeria’s roseate ones. Both women had small, deltoid-shaped breasts that didn’t need a bra. They entwined in a swirl of white and tan limbs, coaxing each other onto the mattress. Lorna had seen enough. In closing the panel, she’d taken care to be quiet, but judging by the rapidly building frenzy of movement and noise, a gunshot, wouldn’t have interrupted their passion.

  Opening the panel for the width of an eye, she couldn’t help but take a last peek.

  Having to crouch down to clear the opening, her perspective came from below the level of the mattress. Earlier, Cynthia had pushed the green coverlet to the foot of the bed. Valeria lay on top. At the height of each pelvic rotation, her round bottom just cleared the covers like twin cream-colored suns rising over a verdant landscape. Pressed into the sheets, Cynthia gasped and whimpered, out of sight except for two expansive arms stretched beyond the width of the bed. Within seconds, each hand clasped a brass bar of the headboard. Her gasps of pleasure filled the room. With difficulty, Lorna pulled clear of the scene.

  Back inside among the conduits, Lorna held the plans up to a naked incandescent bulb to get her bearings. The erroneous exit marking the end of the passage sat another fifty feet behind her. After rechecking the corrections, she began to walk, soon recognizing a familiar moistness at the apex of her thighs.

  A young vampire servant, adjusting a floral arrangement on a carved wood table, gasped in surprise at Lorna’s sudden appearance.

  Lorna smiled at her, closing the panel. The entrance blended almost seamlessly into the rich, linen-textured wallpaper. Lorna knocked the dust from the shoulders of her blouse, smiled once more, and headed for Cynthia’s room to begin a proper visit. The housekeeper alerted at Lorna’s state of arousal, averting eyes as protocol required.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “What are you telling me?” Lorna asked the captain of the off going motor launch. With alarm in his voice, he radioed her before the craft tied up.

  “Ma’am, just as I said, there’s an East Mexican Navy frigate on station right outside of the territorial limits.”

  “This island is a protectorate of Costa Rica,” Lorna said aloud to herself. “Why would East Mexico be interested in us?”

  Ed understood why.

  They were in his office when she told him. With a distracted expression, he heaved up off his chair. “Our island has strategic value. With a few aircraft, one could control seaborne traffic within a thousand miles.” He paced on the carpet in front of the desk. Lorna rotated in her seat to keep him in sight. “They may be planning an operation.”

  “An operation? What do you mean?”

  “An operation against us. The message traffic suggests one is in progress, but nothing more specific. General Electronics has a lot of influence in the country. They may have encouraged the East Mexican government.”

  “Wait a minute,” Lorna said. “Are you saying East Mexico would simply take this island from Costa Rica?”

  Ed thought a moment. “Well yes, I guess I am. Costa Rica has no navy to speak of. What can they do?”

  “And who’s the greatest military power in the Caribbean?”

  “That’s a no-brainer, Brazil.”

  Lorna eased next to him. “Don’t you think their best interests would be served by preventing an East Mexican invasion of our island?”

  “Of course. You’re brilliant!”

  Thomas spoke up. “Even if the corporation had no influence within the Brazilian government, the idea of intervention makes sense. They’d be foolish to pass up a chance to do something to benefit the strategic position of their country. The problem—Brazil does nothing with dispatch.”

  While the corporation contacted sympathizers in Brazil, long-range radar on the island reported a flotilla of ships on the way. When Ed leaned over to peer at the formation of blips, his face reflected green light from the circular radar screen.

  “You say they’re from East Mexico?” he asked the officer-in-charge. “Are you sure?”

  “Without a doubt, sir.”

  “When will they arrive?”

  “In about thirty-six hours, give or take.”

  Lorna clutched Ed’s arm. “There must be several thousand of them. We can’t stand up to this kind of force.”

  “I know. With the radar equipment and airstrip, we’re a readymade military base. Brazil must realize the potential. They won’t stand by and allow another country to invade.”

  “You assume they can be prompted to act,” Thomas said. “Brazil spent weeks arguing over the seating protocol at the beginning of the last congressional session. I don’t see any prospects for a quick decision on behalf of our issue.”

  “But why are the Mexicans doing it now?” Lorna wondered aloud.

  “Intelligence pretty much confirmed General Electronics is involved,” Thomas said. “And…”

  Ed turned toward his brother. “Go ahead, finish the thought. They think Bobby’s helping them.”

  “I will! You must face the possibility.”

  Ed seemed to shrink in on himself. “I know. I know.” He sighed.

  Lorna consulted the notebook she carried and summarized the island’s assets. “We can put a force of two hundred and sixty-six together. We have no heavy weapons, only hand grenades, and dynamite. They outnumber us ten to one, at least, with artillery, armor, and aircraft.”

  Ed flipped Lorna a quick wink. “The situation doesn’t look good,” he said.

  “No, it doesn’t.” She agreed.

  He has a plan.

  “This is what we do. All of The Others will come with me into the jungle. There’s a network of caves in the mountains. Those’ll be our base. Humans remain here with all hybrids. Offer no resistance. We’ll harass them as long as we can, or until Brazil sends help.” His eyes filled with green light, whether from inside or from the radar screen, Lorna couldn’t tell. Rising to full height,
he morphed. Ed’s third persona, the vampire - rarest of the three emerged. Both products of self-discipline, Shadow Ed and the Chairman gave way to a creature of raw passion. The vampire voice roared. “We fight using the old ways—with fang and claw.”

  After everyone cleared out to begin setting up what they needed for a jungle-based resistance, Ed told Lorna she must stay behind.

  “You think I won’t keep up?” Lorna turned away. “I’m fine. I don’t get sick. Also, I’m fit as ever. I won’t hold you back.”

  Ed drew her close. “Don’t you think I want you beside me? I don’t doubt what you say, but I need you here more.”

  “Why? You have Thomas, and Karla. They were your brain trust in the past.”

  “Both are competent, even brilliant, but neither possesses your instinct for finding solutions. And I think that quality will be needed here soon enough. You serve best by remaining behind.”

  After thinking Ed’s reasoning through, reluctantly, she had to agree. At least Wendy and Jamie were safe back in Florida. In tough situations, they could be drama queens. Keeping Karla calmed down would be challenge enough.

  * * * *

  The flotilla arrived less than an hour after the last of Ed’s guerrilla force left. The pace, together with the difficulty of what Ed planned, couldn’t be slowed by human or hybrid. To Cynthia’s open disappointment, Ed decreed Valeria stay behind. Surprising everyone, the young hybrid seemed relieved. Lorna assumed the inconveniences of jungle living outweighed Cynthia’s companionship.

  Five frigates surrounded a helicopter carrier and a troop ship. The frigates patrolled the sea outside of the harbor while the troop ship ventured closer in, unloading human cargo and equipment to amphibious craft of various types. Humanity and supplies piled up steps away from the café she and Ed held so dear. After forming up in pre-determined groups, the soldiers deployed in different directions. Finally, Ulbert’s small form came alongside, nudging her elbow. “There are some gentlemen here.” His grave quiet suggested nothing pleasant waited for her.