by Jeremy Flagg
NIGHT SHADOWS
CHILDREN OF NOSTRADAMUS, BOOK 2
JEREMY FLAGG
NIGHT SHADOWS
Copyright © 2017 by Jeremy Flagg.
All rights reserved.
First Print Edition: February 2017
Limitless Publishing, LLC
Kailua, HI 96734
www.limitlesspublishing.com
Formatting: Limitless Publishing
ISBN-13: 978-1-68058-978-8
ISBN-10: 1-68058-978-4
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.
Dedication
This book is dedicated to the kids who related to comics more than the world around them.
And to Chris Cary, for reminding me to live in the moment and keep going, even when life’s a struggle.
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Epilogue
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Prologue
2032
“Madame President, we’re under attack.”
The General huffed and puffed as he climbed over the shattered wood of her broken entryway. Two members of the Secret Service sat slumped by the door, knocked down by the burly man. She didn’t hide her anger as she stood behind her desk and pointed at him. “Sir, what do you think you are doing?”
“President, the Facility is under attack.”
She bit her lip, aware of the severity of the situation. She stepped around her desk, letting her fingers slip along the edge of her desk to press a red panic button as she did so. She didn’t like the General, but she could do little to stop him. His rank and seniority afforded him certain latitudes she wouldn’t otherwise have allowed.
“General, I would appreciate—”
“Later,” he said.
He motioned to the orb suspended above her desk with a slight hand gesture. As the orb began projecting several screens of vibrant light, he poked at the air with his finger, moving one window to the side and opening several more. Within seconds, multiple monitors showed feeds from the Facility.
“Is this live?” she asked, stepping out from behind her desk and watching the man.
“Yes. We have five Children who breached the Facility.”
“Only five?”
He ignored the comment. She eyed the fallen Secret Service men. They were some of the most trained men in the world and this brutish ancient geriatric bested them? There was something amiss with the current situation.
Her eyes narrowed as she glared at the screen. “I recognize that one.” The president pointed to the screen. “She’s your Paladin.” She leaned in to witness the woman fling a man against a wall as if he weighed nothing. The Child only paused when soldiers landed their shots. Even then, bullets did little to stop her as they bounced off her skin.
“She was my Paladin. She went AWOL on a mission in the Danger Zone. It appears she has some extremely powerful friends.”
They watched as one man hurled what appeared to be lightning from his body. The bolts surged from his palms, tearing away from his chest in loud snaps as they smacked into the generators. The chain of electricity erupted from his bare chest.
The president stared in disbelief at the magnitude of such an ability. “What is it they want?”
The General shrugged his shoulders. “I was hoping you could explain this. The Facility has been your pet project since it opened. What is it they want?”
In another image, young girl severed the wires of a synthetic, tearing through them as if they offered a mere inconvenience. The president stood in awe with how swiftly each of the Children moved; the people obviously had worked together before. She hadn’t imagined it possible a group of Children acting in such perfect harmony.
“There’s a mentalist,” she mumbled to herself. She recognized the fluid manner in which the team operated, knowing what one another did half a complex away. Their mouths moved as they spoke to ghosts. Somewhere, somebody coordinated this assault.
“More so than that, I want to know why your Warden is doing absolutely nothing in response to this threat?”
A single screen focused on the Warden. His eyes were open, but he seemed to be staring off into space, oblivious to the world around him. The president knew that expression; he was lost in his thoughts, relying on his abilities to do the dirty work for him. She had only met him a handful of times before discovering what he was. He evaded a death sentence, manipulating her at first with promises of greatness and later with threats from his newfound army.
“You don’t seem particularly alarmed, Madame President.”
She knew the General well enough to know he had a morsel of information he left unsaid, while he poked and prodded at her until she snapped. If she was the most powerful woman in the world, he was her husband by influence. The General controlled the military forces of the United States of America, and because of the threats of mentalists, terrorists, and Children, he had been given enough resources to wage a domestic war.
“What are you attempting to get at, sir?”
“Since our rendezvous with the Facility a few days ago in an attempt to apprehend Conthan Cowan, I’ve been doing some research into how the Facility is run.”
“You mean your spies have been at work.”
“That’s the funny thing,” he said. “My spies had nothing to report. The place is clean, not a single person reported anything out of the ordinary. While I would like to believe that’s true, let’s be honest—in a compound housing some of the darkest research known to mankind, not even one crooked guard?”
“Perhaps the Warden runs a much tighter ship than you? It doesn’t appear he has soldiers defecting.”
The man’s scowl revealed she touched a nerve. They had worked together long enough that she knew how to get under his skin. A simple threat to his effectiveness as a general would send him over the edge and she’d witness his legendary temper.
“It reminded me of something we haven’t seen in decades, Madame President. I decided to use the video and audio from the synthetics located within the Facility. You’d be amazed at how well they can see. During the fire fight a few days ago, the people along the walls stopped firing, ignoring their prime directive of keeping the Facility safe. The Warden, he sat in nearly an identical state then as he is now.”
The threat loomed in the air. She knew he was holding something back, something that would implicate her as the mastermind behind the Facility. She had been careful, spendin
g decades to reach this point; every association and every tie to her was distant at best. Whatever accusation he was about to hurl, she was ready to discredit.
“The man you made Warden of the Facility...” He paused and stared down at her, his expression holding every ounce of seriousness possible. “Your Warden is a mentalist.”
“You are a fool…”
She expected him to respond with criticism, mocking her, tearing down her authority as the president. She expected him to threaten her position of power, one titan of America threatening to dethrone the other. She expected many things, but the gun being drawn from his waistband wasn’t one of them.
The black metal flashed before her eyes. She wasn’t sure if the general was augmented with cybernetics or if he been doing this so long he was just fast. The muscles in his arm were developed to the point where his hand didn’t move as he held the weapon. His face seemed void of emotion, not giving away any hint of what would happen next.
“This is treason.”
“This is saving America.”
Threatening her had become commonplace for him, along with claiming he served the “American way.” When she won the revision of the twenty-second amendment, removing her term limit, he hadn’t drawn a gun, but he made it clear that he believed she would lead America down a dark road. Now, decades later, it seemed their clandestine quarrel was about to reach its apex.
“If you kill me, you’ll be hanged for treason.”
“You’ll be found overcome with grief, gun in your hand, and the tabloids will believe every word.”
There was nobody else in the country who could manipulate the media as well as her. During the Culling, they circumvented riots as they imposed martial law and used the media to justify intrusion into the homes of innocent Americans. There might not be anybody who could rival her, but he came close. However the next fifteen seconds panned out, the survivor would control the most powerful nation in the world.
She lunged at his hand, shoving the gun upward. A shot fired into the ceiling of the Oval Office. Grabbing her wrist with his free hand, he pried her fingers off his gun hand. He leveled the weapon at her head again. She kicked at his knee, sending him toppling to the ground. As he dropped she jumped over her desk and fell off the side, the massive oak furniture between them.
“I’ll have your head,” she yelled.
The scanner built into the desk drawer read her fingerprints and popped open. She reached in and pulled out her own weapon. As she rested her finger on the trigger, the small power cell begun spinning, prepping the laser discharge.
Lifting her head just enough to see over the desk, she found that the General had a sturdy grip, his gun pointed at her. He fired again, sending her to the ground for cover. She wasn’t a novice in a fight, but the General had spent his entire life training for situations like this.
“Madame President,” a voice yelled. “We’re here to…”
More shots fired, ending the sentence before they could finish. She lay approximately fifteen feet from the entrance to a safe room. If she reached the shelter, nothing short of a missile strike could harm her. There was no way she could make it to the wall, open the door, and get inside before he shot her in the back. Even if she was lucky and made it to the door, in the half second it took for her to push her way through he’d have a bullet penetrating the back of her head.
“Give up now,” she said. “It’s the last warning, General.”
The thumping of feet filling carpeted corridors got louder as her reinforcements flooded the building. He may control the manned military, but the synthetic army served under her control. While the military had utilized them for the last decade, she hadn’t been a fool. She grabbed the edge of the desk and looked over as the General turned around to confront the three synthetics strolling into the room. Even the fastest shooting wouldn’t save him now. His reflexes and manpower couldn’t stop nearly a half ton of metal.
“Ready to stand down now?”
She couldn’t hide her grin as the General turned toward her, holstering his gun. She figured he would try and fight his way out of the scenario. For some reason, she didn’t expect the veteran soldier to be taken prisoner; he struck her more as a fight-to-the-death type of guy.
“Vazquez,” he said, his voice just above a whisper.
The crash of the bay window shattering seemed quiet compared to the explosions of the synthetics’ heads. Each of the manmade soldiers ruptured, sparks flying in all directions. The burst of light and sound didn’t slow her as she got to her feet and ran toward the hidden panel in the office.
Her hand pressed the release latch on the door. It slid open quickly, sending her stumbling forward. She turned just in time to see the flash of gun powder from the General’s gun. The pain was sharp as she toppled to the ground half inside the entrance to the safe room. The hurt moving down her side told her that his bullet pierced the muscle in her arm. She pulled her feet inside the threshold, causing a glass to slide shut. Several bullets ricocheted off the door, as the general emptied the last of his ammunition into it.
She moved back to her feet while gripping her wounded arm, trying to keep the blood from pouring out. Their eyes locked, both wearing disgusted looks. The man had tried to assassinate her. The second time it had happened in this very office. Both times she walked away victorious. The irony wasn’t lost on her as she began to laugh hysterically.
He reached up to his ear and mumbled something. She knew he was asking for an extraction. Her guards were already swarming the White House. Any other man would be slaughtered before he got out the doors, but it was obvious he came here ready for this encounter. He was almost as resilient as she.
“You had your chance.” She looked down to the blood seeping out of her arm. In the bunker beneath the White House there was enough technology to patch it up without much fuss. Hissing as she pressed the wound hard, she hobbled down the hallway toward the elevator.
“You wanted a war, General, you’ve got one.”
Chapter 1
2033
Violating curfew was punishable by death.
Her roommate convinced her to go to the party at a friend of a friend’s house. She hadn’t wanted to go, there was a biology exam in the morning and she needed to study if she was going to pass. That test had been the focus of her life for the past two weeks. She could hear her parents scolding her if she got anything less than an A. “Your sister made it into med school with a perfect 4.0.”
She hated her sister.
She jogged lightly down the street, heels clacking along the sidewalk. It was only eleven thirty and the streets of her borough were empty. Lights filled the windows of many buildings, but the blinds were pulled tight. She wished she was behind one of them, home, tucked away in the safety of her pajamas with a cup of herbal tea. But no, she had decided it was more important to mingle with a cute boy in her sociology class. She sounded like her sister.
His house had been in the next borough. It looked a lot like hers, cars lining one side of the street and the long rows of brownstone buildings stretching down the road. Every so often there would be a gap between the buildings, an alley leading to the backyard or small sheds where they stored the outside trashcans. Unlike in her borough, there was no grass between the buildings and the sidewalk. The little bit of grass in her part of the burbs gave some semblance of space. Here, it felt as if each building was packed as tightly as could be. It wasn’t far from the truth. She lived in one of the nicest areas of New York City, but it had become crowded to the point of unlivable.
Her hand had the telltale signs of smudged makeup as she wiped the tears from her eyes. As her fingers touched her cheek there was a sharp sting from where a bruise was already starting to form. It had been going well before that. They were drinking. He had been brave enough to reach out and put his hand on her shoulder, tracing a line to her hand. He had been unlike the guys at school.
The booze had clouded her judgement. It was her fault
for getting drunk. The conversation had been light until somebody brought up the D.C. Treaty and what it meant for Democratic States of America. His fingers were wrapped around her hand, giving it gentle squeezes as people expressed their views. She finally spoke. “This fight is about the corrupt being in power.” His gentle squeeze turned to a painful grip.
His father apparently worked for the government and he didn’t like her answer. She didn’t find that out until later. As they made out she let him lead her to the bedroom. She was pretty sure she’d regret the sex in the morning, but after so much studying, it was time to let loose and be a real college student. As he shut the door, his hand swung, striking her across the face. He tried to wrestle her to the bed, but she fought back. Her dad had taught her to struggle. His screams echoed when her knee connected with his groin.
Panicking, she ran down the stairs and ignored the shouts from the others in the living room. Opening the door, she ran outside. It wasn’t until she reached the end of the block she figured out what they had been yelling about. Curfew. It was only a matter of time before somebody spotted her.
A light shone down the road as a vehicle turned onto the street. The terror set in as she looked for an escape, her hands shaking. She took several steps on a staircase leading down to a garden level apartment. She ducked, pressing her back to the brick, attempting to hide from the light as it passed by. There was barely a hum of the engine as the car continued down the road. She didn’t dare look up to see if there were officers in the seat or if the car was driving itself. Either way, it meant the police were somewhere nearby.
She pulled at the straps on her heels and slowly removed her shoes. The lights dimmed and she took a breath, trying to steady herself as the alcohol pulsed through her veins. She crouched on the stairs, watching as the vehicle rounded the corner, going to inspect another street.