Unyielding (Out of the Box Book 11)

by Robert J. Crane

  “What’s going on, girlfriend?” Veronika said, sassing me as she came up the two short steps from the living room to break my hug with Kat. She extended a hand. I assumed we were shaking like dudes, but just as I reached to grasp hers, her skin turned blue and burst into plasma flames, searing my palm and causing me to jerk back my hand to avoid losing it entirely to the intense heat.

  “Ow! Asshole!” I said, flapping my hand as though that would speed up Wolfe’s healing of the burn.

  Veronika cackled like an old lady, which she might have been for all I knew. “Haha, I’m just messing with you.” She got serious. “I’d ask how your trip was, but the part I saw on the news involved getting shot down by fighter jets, so … I’m guessing it was still better than crossing a TSA checkpoint?”

  “Less groping of my private parts, anyway.”

  “Always a downside,” Veronika said, making a sound of disappointment.

  “Is she here?” A voice sounded from behind the sunlit view. Steven’s house looked out on the Pacific, and it was midday, and sunny, and even I couldn’t complain about that. Mostly because I was inside and not getting sunburned.

  Abigail—Abby—peered out at me from behind a wall, then slowly crept out further. She was wearing something not unlike my top. I’d sorta cribbed my new style from her, down to the hair color. “Oh, wow,” she said, giving me the once over. “You look a lot cooler as a fugitive.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I borrowed your fashion sense for this cover identity’s look.”

  She shrugged, blushing with the perceived compliment. “You wanna raid my closet later? You’re looking a little ragged.”

  I glanced at the clothing I was wearing, which indeed had seen better days. There were a lot of holes, none of them in places that would get me cited for public exposure, except maybe in Utah. “I might take you up on that, unless I decide to go a different direction with my look.”

  “Where is she?” Dr. Isabella Perugini emerged from behind Abigail, pausing in Abby’s shadow as she took me all in. I didn’t know quite what to expect from her, so I braced, figuring the most likely response was going to be a fusillade of angry recriminations punctuated by florid Italian curses (were there any other kind of Italian curses, really?).

  What I got instead was another hug, a charging-nearly-knock-me-over hug from a woman who’d called me many, many nasty names over the course of our relationship. She squeezed me tight, pressing her cheek against mine and then kissing me on both as she broke away, a tear glittering in the corner of her eye before it traced a line down her olive cheek. “It is so good to see you, Sienna.”

  “Thanks,” I said, lost for words. “I … saw Reed this morning.”

  She stiffened, bristled. “I trust he is still … a puppet with the President’s hand up his ass?”

  “I don’t think that’s how he’s actually controlling them,” I said, brushing past her and into a huge living room/kitchen combo that fully embraced the Malibu view. “Harmon’s a telepath—”

  “Tell us something we don’t know,” Veronika said as she slouched down the steps again behind me. Everyone else—Abigail, Steven, Veronika, Colin, Harry, Kat, even Perugini, followed slowly, as if afraid that sudden movement would break the web of conversation as it was beginning.

  “Okay,” I said, taking that as a challenge. “Scott’s been under some form of his control probably since our visit to LA last November,” I nodded at Kat and Steven, “and Cassidy Ellis is working with him, in the White House, but under duress—”

  “What do you mean, ‘under duress’?” This came from Perugini. “She tried to kill you before. She nearly did kill Reed.”

  “I know,” I said, turning to look at the beach view, “but I had a talk with her, and she gave away a lot more than she would have if she’d been happy with her current working conditions.” I chewed my lip. “She as much as admitted she was in the White House, she called in Harmon to break into the dreamwalk, which totally exposed him for what he was—”

  “We could have told you what he was,” Kat said.

  “I didn’t know you were on my side, okay?” I threw up my hands. “I spent the last month hiding and wallowing, figuring everyone turned on me. I’m sorry for doubting you, all right?” I didn’t look anyone in the eyes. “I have abandonment issues for some unknown reason, and I jumped to the wrong conclusion—”

  “Damned right you did,” Kat said. “We were here all along, trying to figure out any way we could to get word to you. Poor Harry sat and thought about dialing a phone for days. It was so sad. Also, I haven’t been shopping in a month.”

  I couldn’t contain my sarcasm, not even when presented with so obvious a display of Kat’s loyalty. “Truly, no one has suffered as you have suffered.”

  Veronika snickered. “So Harmon’s your big bad, huh?”

  “Well, he’s bad,” I said. “Badder than I ever realized, anyway.”

  “How bad is he?” Abigail asked, tentatively. “That’s … that’s not a joke setup, I sincerely want to know. I mean, I voted for him. I feel pangs of guilt. Also, fear, because unlike the rest of you, I have never been a fugitive. Or in a fight.”

  “It’s an open question,” I said, “but I’ll tell you what I suspect—Edward Cavanagh was one of his biggest donors, right?” I looked around. Realizing that neither Augustus nor J.J. was there to back me up, my gaze settled on Abigail.

  “So I’ve heard …” Abigail said awkwardly, obviously feeling singled out.

  “Think about everything we’ve tied Cavanagh to this last couple of years,” I said, and then realized that, really, no one in the room knew what the hell we’d tied Cavanagh to. “Uh, okay, well—he was responsible for funding Dr. Doomsday in Chicago—”

  “Ohhh,” Harry Graves said, throwing up a finger, “yeah—!”

  “Okay, yeah, that,” Colin said with a nod.

  “Right,” Veronika said, “that asshole that used the DNA we volunteered—”

  “For money,” I pushed in acerbically.

  “—to create an anti-metahuman plague,” Veronika finished, giving me a daggered look of her own. “Why did he do that again? Because a meta girl rejected him or something?”

  “I think his wife left him for a meta?” Kat asked, looking up at the ceiling as if trying to recall.

  “Who gives a shit?” I asked. “Point is, he was funded by Cavanagh. And Cavanagh also had his fingers in something else—manufacturing a serum that gave normal humans meta powers. Like, it unlocked it in their DNA. That was how I met Augustus—”

  “Wait, so is Augustus not a real meta, then?” Abigail asked. She seemed to ponder this. “Could I get some of that serum? Because I’m wondering, you know, now that I’m a fugitive and at risk of getting in a fight, like—maybe that could help me not die. Very important to me. Crucial, really.”

  “We don’t have any of the serum,” I said, “but Cavanagh was also linked to another solution that suppresses meta powers—”

  “That douche came up with suppressant?” Veronika let out a sigh of disgust. “If he wasn’t already dead, I’d kill him myself—”

  “And that’s another thing,” I said. “When I was talking to Harmon today—”

  “Talking to him how?” Steven asked, handsome face creased with concern. “Did he show up to—”

  “He channeled himself through Scott, like a demon,” I said. “But he as much as admitted to killing Cavanagh just before he tried to blow a pressure valve in Scott’s head. He killed Cavanagh, either to protect himself from the blowback with the election coming up, or maybe from something even worse coming out if Cavanagh talked to the cops.” My thoughts thundered along. Cavanagh was going to talk, too. Senator Robb Foreman had seen to that.

  “Wow, there’s a lot going on here,” Veronika said softly, with a look on her face that said she wanted to back away from this mess like she’d never seen any of it.

  “So Cavanagh funded this other thing out in Oregon called Palleton La
bs—” I started.

  “This guy is starting to sound like the corporate version of that sperm donor who knocked up like a thousand women,” Abigail said. “You know, the one Vince Vaughan played in that movie—”

  “I remember Palleton Labs,” Kat said, looking suddenly lively. “That was where Augustus got ragdolled through all those walls and floors—”

  “There was a vault on the top floor.” I bypassed whatever meandering road Kat was going to go down in favor of pursuing my own to the end. “Timothy Logan, this … worthless turd that I paroled from the Cube, back before parole from the Cube became the cool thing to do—”

  “It wasn’t that cool,” Steven deadpanned. “I think it ended up being pretty hot for most of those releases, in fact …”

  “Because she burned them to death,” Kat giggled.

  “Anyway, Timothy and his cronies broke in, tried to get into the vault, but they couldn’t, even with Gavrikov powers,” I said. “So I stole the vault—”

  “Whoaaaaa,” Steven said, frowning, “I thought you were innocent of all the stuff they accused you of—”

  “Well, I was,” I said. “I mean, I burned those bad guys up in Eden Prairie because they were beating me to death. But the vault thing, I mean it was a Cavanagh-funded installation. I just assumed the seeds of evil were, you know, fair game for the taking—”

  “What did you find inside?” Dr. Perugini asked, managing to stay on track.

  “I couldn’t open it,” I said, pacing in front of the bright windows. “Turns out, they treated the metal with this—well, it’s a meta power that grants additional strength through this imbuement process. It’s how Mjolnir became this invulnerable, badass, mythical weapon—”

  “Wait, so Mjolnir was a real thing?” Steven asked, brow furrowed.

  “This is just the most educational day ever,” Abigail said.

  “Is that the hammer wielded by Chris Hemsworth?” Kat asked.

  Idiot, Bjorn opined.

  I will hurt you in your imaginary genitals, Gavrikov said. That settled things down quickly, which was surprising given how much of a douchebag Bjorn was.

  “Yeah,” I said, “that one. Anyway, the vault has been treated by a meta who’s given it the same sort of impregnability factor. I tried to burn through—nothing. Punches don’t do squat. I ripped it out of a building and flew across multiple states and there wasn’t a ding to show for it.”

  “Maybe you didn’t burn it hard enough,” Veronika said with a smirk, lifting her plasma hand. It glowed blue, and I could practically feel the heat wafting off it, like a mirage in the desert. “Wanna try with something a little stronger than fire?”

  72.

  Scott

  They caught a flight back to DC once it was obvious the trail was cold. They’d lost it somewhere north of Salt Lake City. A team of military analysts was trying to trace it even now, but a complex pattern of evasions and a car switch somewhere along the way under cover of a garage left them guessing, trying to narrow down probabilities that were increasingly improbable. That was fine with Scott, who was still enjoying the absence of President Harmon’s mental touch. Any sudden alert might just wake the president, after all, and that would be nothing but bad for him.

  “You let her get away,” Mac the Knifer said from his seat across from Scott in the government plane. He was playing with that blade of his, and the thing was gleaming in the afternoon sunshine leaking in through the open shade.

  “Yeah, I totally summoned a speedster to come pick her up,” Scott said. He could feel the gaze of Augustus and Reed on him, watching, listening. Probably J.J., too, though that was a little more fifty-fifty since the geek was still working on the White House threat assessment in the back of the plane. At least he wasn’t working on tracking Sienna. “That’s on me.”

  “You didn’t breach and clear,” Mac said, leaning forward, knife still on his fingertips. “You could have washed her right out of the house if you’d been of a mind to. Instead you started speaking in tongues—tongues that don’t belong to you.” He stared at Scott with a fierce look. “When did you start speaking other peoples’ minds?”

  “I’ve got more thoughts than fit in my own head,” Scott said carefully. “I doubt you’d understand.”

  Mac’s eyes narrowed, reflected in the glare of the knife as he brought it up to rest, dull edge against his nose. “I don’t understand. But I know weirdness when I see it, and a Poseidon that suddenly starts talking in another man’s voice … that’s weird. The sort of weird that killed Rudi, Ferko and Ambrus—”

  “Ambrus?” Scott asked, raising an eyebrow. “Oh. Booster.”

  “Damned right,” Mac said. “Now I’m bound by orders to go along with this increasingly improbable mission. But I don’t have to like it. And don’t count on me following your lead anymore. The next time I get a chance to cut out Sienna Nealon’s lungs, I’m taking it. Stand back or I’ll carve out your voicebox. All your voiceboxes, if I find more than one.” And with his mind apparently spoken, Mac leaned back in his seat and was snoring within minutes.

  “He doesn’t even consider you threat enough to worry you might kill him in his sleep.”

  Scott turned to see Gaucho Joaquín chortling, his sparkly vest catching the sunlight like the knife had.

  “You don’t consider me much of a threat, either,” he observed, though Joaquín’s eyes stayed firmly on him.

  “Si, but I always keep watch,” Joaquín said. His eyes widened and briefly glowed. “Sleep with your eyes open, yes? This is a lesson I learned early.”

  “Sound advice,” Scott said.

  “Sounds like advice you should heed,” Gothric the Medic said in his heavily accented English. “Maybe someone blames you for the death of our compatriots.”

  “Were you close?” Scott asked warily. He looked at Reed and Augustus, but suspected he wouldn’t get much backing from either of them if the Revelen team turned on him.

  “We’d been through more than you can imagine,” Gothric said. Joaquín just nodded.

  “I can imagine quite a lot,” Scott said.

  “Imagine this,” Gothric said, dark eyes on Scott just the way Joaquín’s had been. “Sovereign’s old group Century is coming to your nation, intent on destroying every single meta.”

  “Not hard to imagine, oddly enough,” Scott said.

  “Oh, but in America he did not even come close to finishing the job,” Gothric said. “In Europe, they killed ninety percent of us, easy. Only the truly cunning outrun Century. Either the ones who go to ground,” he mimed lowering his head, “or those who fight back so hard that Century decides—’You know, it’s not worth it for these. We go around them, come back later with more strength.’” Gothric made a sour face. “Revelen was one of the only places that Century just … left alone after two attempts at extermination. Rudi always said they would come back later, once Sovereign had the world, and just … nuke us. What could we do? Small country, small population.” He shrugged. “We banded together there. We stood there, together.” He made a hateful face. “Together. The six of us. Some others. We all made it out alive because we—” He bit his fist, then pulled it out of his mouth and shook it, “—we made them pay for coming to us. We stood against them. All they sent mercenary and meta alike. All of us. Together.” His brow became a dark line. “Until today.”

  “You did watch her kill Sovereign and Century, right?” Scott asked, a little more casually than he might have if he hadn’t been facing death in the form of presidential mind-control. “The world did. I assume you have TVs in Revelen … internet, maybe?” He watched his barbs provoke a slight stiffening from Joaquín. “She whipped all of their asses. She did. Not her plus all her friends, whatever the media might have said. We fought some, but she did the killing. She wiped them out. I’m guessing whatever Century sent at you, they were corpses when you were done with them over in Revelen.” His face tightened to match those he was speaking to. “They were ash and bone and blood a
nd pieces when she killed the rest of them and their king shit leader over here. You wanna be mad at me? Go ahead.” He settled back in his own chair, and closed his eyes. “Kill me in my sleep if you think it’ll help your shot the next time you go fist to fist with her. You shoot your little eye beams,” he made a vague gesture at Joaquín, “you see if you can choke her with a plant or something,” he waved his hand at Gothric the Persephone, “and maybe, who knows, Mac the Knifer will get lucky and cut her lungs out. Then she’ll grow a new set and he’ll spend the rest of his short life being fed his own entrails.” Scott really was feeling a little drowsy. “Because those other two zombies,” he waved at Reed and Augustus, knowing they wouldn’t have a clue what he was talking about, “they’re going to be about as much help to you as the cold corpses of your newly-departed friends.” He smiled, feeling the swirl of sweet sleep twisting around in his brain, ready to draw him in, and he could practically hear the shuffling discomfort he’d awoken in Joaquín and Gothric. They wouldn’t be sleeping on this flight, that much was sure. “‘Nighty-night.”

  73.

  Sienna

  “This isn’t as much fun as I thought it would be,” Veronika complained as I carried her over Montana. We’d taken the chartered plane up to a nearby airfield, hopefully minimizing our risk of getting caught by a careful watcher of satellite footage. Also, carrying Veronika from LA to Montana at a thousand miles an hour? Probably not healthy for her. Or me, come to think of it. She gets cold, she lights off, we both fall out of the sky screaming and burning.

  “Because I’m carrying you or because it’s effing freezing?” I asked.

  “It’s freezing,” she said, lips blue and chattering, the moon barely visible as it cast its silvery light over the cloudy sky. At least we had that working for us, too, probably interfering with the satellites. “How do you stand this?”