Faith pulled off Dylan’s shirt and ran her hands up the length of his back and then down his muscular chest.
Dylan smiled, and his lips stretched playfully along Faith’s own. She loved it when he smiled and they were kissing, as if his happiness were seeping into her, making her whole.
“How long before we make our escape?” Faith asked. She’d asked this question many times before, like a story she wanted to hear over and over again.
Dylan didn’t hesitate. He pulled back and looked into her eyes, touched her cheek.
“One day, Faith Daniels, this will be over. We won’t be a part of something we didn’t ask to participate in. We won’t be counted on to fix anything we didn’t break. We’ll be free. Free of the rebellion and the States—all of it.”
“And then what?” Faith asked, feeling her pulse quicken as she kissed him again and again. “Where will we go?”
Dylan rolled her over on her back and leaned in close.
“We’ll go to the mountains, high enough where no one can find us. And we’ll build a cabin together. We’ll stay in bed until noon, get up, and make omelets full of wild mushrooms. We’ll take long walks in the woods.”
“We’ll need chickens,” Faith said as she stared deep into his golden-brown eyes.
“And a house cat. Should we bring the cougar?”
“Whatever you say.”
They rolled playfully across the trampoline, and Faith ended up on top. She looked down at Dylan, her hair falling in waves.
“I love you,” Dylan said, pulling her closer.
Faith’s breath caught in her chest. It was the first time he’d said this to her, and she hadn’t expected it. She hesitated in her reply, instead going in for an embrace that left her lips touching his ear. Her emotions were a bottled-up mix of revenge, love, anger, and fear that confused her and made her defensive.
“I love you, too,” Faith said. It came out as one word without any space in between. She hoped it hadn’t felt rushed or insincere.
“Let’s stay out here all night,” Dylan whispered back.
And so they did, dreaming of a cabin in the woods on a mountain peak, far away from all their troubles and responsibilities.
Chapter 4
Supermax
They woke simultaneously to the sound of a voice. Someone was calling their names from outside the Looney Bin.
“Dylan? Faith? You two in there?”
Light was streaming in as they both sat up and realized they’d slept through the night.
“What time is it?” Faith asked. Dylan pulled his Tablet out of his pocket.
“Whoa, eight twelve. We slept in a little bit.”
Faith was already slipping on her boots before the call came again.
“Come on, you guys; I know you’re in here. Why you gonna hide from old Semana?”
“At least it’s not your mom,” Faith said, pulling her long blond hair into a ponytail. “That might have been a little awkward.”
“Hang on, we’ll be out in a second,” Dylan shouted, but Semana had entered the Looney Bin and found his way to the trampoline.
“You two should let someone know if you’re not coming in for the night. Least I knew where to look.”
“Thanks, Semana.”
“How pissed off is she?” Faith asked as she bounded across the trampoline and stepped out onto the floor. He was a big guy, round and soft around the middle, and he put his arm on Faith’s shoulder.
“Let’s just say your timing could have been better.”
The entire rebellion had long since taken to extreme measures with their Tablets. Hawk, a genius-level Intel, had hacked into all their Tablets and turned off the communication and GPS features, just in case Andre and the rest of the Quinns had tapped into the system. He’d been working on a secure communication system for months, but so far he hadn’t found a safe way for them to send information back and forth without potentially being detected.
“We better fly, no time to waste,” Semana said. “Stay low, like we talked about. And don’t move anything else.”
The standing rule was no flying in daylight hours. There was no telling who might pass through the area and see them, and the second that happened their cover would be blown. It wouldn’t take long to figure out they were living in an office park a few miles off the coast.
“What’s going on, Semana?” Faith asked as she dodged around a telephone pole and they all three flew a few feet off street level.
“The recon team pulled in an hour ago. They’re waiting for you to show up before they report.”
Dylan and Faith knew exactly what this meant, and it made both of them smile as they flew through an intersection with streetlights that hadn’t worked in decades.
Hawk and Clooger were back.
“Nice of you to join us.”
Meredith didn’t look up from whatever she was working on. She was writing something down the old-fashioned way, with a pen on paper. Hawk jumped up from one of the three couches they’d moved into the planning room from a furniture place they’d found in a strip mall. He fist bumped Dylan as Faith threw an arm over his shoulder.
“If we’d known you were coming, we would have baked a cake,” Faith said, pulling him close like a little brother. His mop of curly hair had grown even longer while they’d been in hiding, and he’d put on a full inch and approximately three pounds. Otherwise, he was the same old Hawk.
“Or maybe you would have had the courtesy to let everyone know where we could find you,” Meredith said. She looked up from her work. “Every second counts; don’t let it happen again.”
“We won’t,” Dylan said. He was relieved his mom wasn’t doing a full inquisition regarding their whereabouts or activities during the previous night.
“Where’s Clooger?” Faith asked. “Wait, let me guess—kitchen?”
Clooger loved to eat, and they’d been stuck with protein bars and bottled water for a bunch of days in a row. The thought of a frozen Eggo waffle, nuked and smothered in syrup, made Faith’s stomach growl with hunger.
“Do me a favor and don’t make a big deal about the new look,” Hawk said, scratching his tangled, curly hair. “He’s a little sensitive about it.”
But it was too late for that, because Clooger walked in carrying a plate of lasagna and Faith screamed. It was not the most subtle of reactions.
“Holy shit, Cloog—what happened to you?!”
“Lasagna? For breakfast?” Hawk asked as the smell of Italian food wafted into the room. “I’m in.”
Hawk brushed past Clooger and more or less ran out the door.
“Make it fast!” Meredith shouted, shaking her head as she thought about the ragtag group of misfits she’d gathered to save the world.
Dylan looked Clooger up and down. “Who did this to you? I won’t rest until they pay.”
Clooger pointed his fork toward the door. “He went thataway.”
Clooger’s head was shaved right down to his noggin. The dreadlocks, which had been two feet long in some places, were gone. The beard, which had covered his face for as long as anyone could remember, had been reduced to a few hours of stubble.
“You two must have gotten really bored out there,” Faith said, going in for a hug that never materialized. When she got within a foot of Clooger, she smelled the lingering remains of a serious skunk attack. “Oh, wow, that’s bad.”
“I’ve gotten used to it,” Clooger said, sucking in a giant sniff of air. “Smells like roses.”
Faith took a long look at Clooger, turning her head from side to side, taking in the strong chin and the round moon of his head. Then she went on in and gave him the hug after all.
“You look ten years younger.”
“Twenty,” Meredith said, smiling at Clooger in a way that mildly suggested something more than commander and soldier.
“Can I get some lasagna?” Dylan asked. He was hungry enough that Italian was starting to smell pretty good even at eight thirty in the morni
ng.
Meredith rolled her eyes and tapped a button on an old-style phone that sat on her desk.
“Hawk?” she said.
There was a pause, then a small, mouse-like voice answered.
“Yeah?”
“Bring the whole pan and hurry up.”
“And some forks,” Dylan added.
Five minutes later Faith, Hawk, Dylan, and Clooger were sitting around a coffee table that held a pan of Costco lasagna, stabbing it with forks as Meredith stood before a whiteboard. She watched them take three or four bites each, tapping her foot on the slick concrete floor.
Meredith was clearly concerned. A few hours before, when Faith and Dylan turned up missing, she had genuinely wondered if they had decided to run away together. That stupid, sappy old song had been playing in her head ever since, and she’d honestly thought they’d taken a serious left and turned their lives in a different direction. She could hardly have blamed them if they had. She’d been known to do such things herself. Then Clooger had arrived, shorn like a poodle and smelling like a skunk. And now this, the ragtag team she had assembled, more interested in eating a block of lasagna that had been frozen for decades than in tracking down the most dangerous enemy the world had ever known.
She’d had it.
“Can I bring you anything else?” Meredith asked. “Some pizza, perhaps?”
“We have pizza? What kind?” Hawk wondered, stuffing his face with lasagna.
Meredith raised her hand, and the tinfoil pan of lasagna wobbled back and forth on the table. She flicked her finger in the air, and the square tin flew across the room as if someone had picked it up and used it in a pie-throwing contest. The pan hit the far wall with a squish-filled pop, then slid down and landed on the floor, leaving behind a greasy orange skid mark.
“That’s the saddest thing I’ve seen all day,” Hawk said.
Dylan had forked faster than the rest and felt nearly full. “The day is young; give it time.”
“Thanks a lot, Hawk,” Faith said through her last bite of breakfast. “I was really enjoying that.”
The forks went next, all four of them jerked out of their hands and stabbed into the ceiling overhead.
“Clooger, please begin your field report,” Meredith said. Veins were pumping blood behind the paper-thin skin of her forehead, and her willowy eyebrows were furrowed, her eyes staring down at the bald-headed man seated on the couch.
Clooger cleared his throat and, feeling a phantom beard, ran his fingers through the empty space beneath his chin. Finding nothing there, he resorted to running his large, meaty palm along the warm surface of his head.
“We’ve tracked Andre to a maximum-security prison facility in Colorado. Odds are his entire team is there, including Gretchen and the twins.”
“Is there any chance they detected you?” Meredith asked. “Any indication you were followed?”
“I can answer that,” Hawk said, raising his hand about halfway in the air before remembering he wasn’t in school anymore. “We were not detected, impossible. And we were not followed; I made sure of it.”
“What are we waiting for?” Faith said, not surprising anyone. Everyone knew she was tired of training. She wanted action.
“We’ve got them cornered in a max-security prison!” she continued, standing up. “It’s perfect. We go in with all guns blazing, middle of the night.”
“That’s a terrible idea,” Meredith said, turning to the whiteboard. “Sit down.”
Faith looked at Clooger, then Dylan, then Hawk, searching for support. None of them would make eye contact.
“Give me the location,” she said to Hawk. “I’ll do it myself.”
Meredith tried again: “Sit down, Faith.”
“Give me the location!” Faith shouted.
A chilling moment of silence enveloped the room as Meredith turned back to the four of them, her cool sapphire eyes boring into Faith. “Yes, by all means, give it to her. Give Faith Daniels the location. She’ll find it on her own anyway. And then she’ll race right over there and save the world, all by herself. Never mind that there are three second pulses within that compound, and one of them is an Intel. Forget that each and every one of them has vastly more experience controlling their pulse, let alone their emotions, than she does.”
“At least I’m willing to do it,” Faith said, not backing down one inch. “Which is more than I can say for you.”
Meredith took a deep breath and pointed her nose at the floor. When she looked up, there was fire in her eyes.
“Here’s the reality of your situation, just so there’s no confusion. I run this show. Me. And I’m making the call. We are not going out there like a bunch of rabid dogs. You want revenge? I’ll get you your revenge. But you’re going to do this my way, or we’re not doing it at all.”
“I don’t understand why we’re—”
“Because you would be destroyed, that’s why!” Meredith exploded. Her eyes fell on everyone in the room, all in their turn, and she thought of all those years with Gretchen and Andre, before Dylan was born. She lowered her voice. “I wish it wasn’t so, but it is. They’re not like us, and not just because they’ve trained longer. They’ll do whatever it takes to change the direction this world is going in. Innocent people don’t matter to them. They’re collateral damage, nothing more.”
“If they’re willing to kill anybody to get what they want, isn’t that all the more reason to take them out now?” Faith pushed. Dylan touched her hand, hoping he could get Faith to temper down, but Faith pulled her hand away. “And while we’re at it, do you even know what they want? Because I sure don’t.”
“I do.”
They’d all heard this before. Meredith knew things no one else did, and she would keep it that way no matter how much pressure was applied.
“Enlighten us, then. Tell us the score. You want to lead, then lead. Otherwise get the hell out of the way and let the second pulses finish the job.”
Dylan had long struggled to feel close to his mom, but he hated seeing her lacerated like this. No single pulse, least of all his mother, could stand not being a second. But if she was wounded by Faith’s words, she didn’t show it.
“It’s a supermax,” Hawk said. He, too, wanted to cool the room if he could. “Florence ADX. It’s intense, actually. Back when it was operating, ADX was the ultimate security prison full of the most dangerous criminals. Moussaoui was there, the guy who helped orchestrate 9/11, along with tons of other Al-Qaeda operatives. The Unabomber, Terry Nichols—he did the Oklahoma City bombing—drug lords and gang leaders. I’m telling you; this was the hotel you stayed in if you were a serious criminal.”
“Obviously they’re not being subtle about who they’re comfortable associating with,” Dylan said.
Hawk kept at it: “The location gives them good coverage. Florence is zeroed, so it’s isolated. But the facility itself is also made to keep people inside, which in turn makes it hard to find out what’s going on in there. They’ve got room to plan and train; obviously there are living quarters, kitchens, the works. It’s pretty brilliant, actually. If you were planning on some serious criminal activity, this is a little bit like hiding in plain sight.”
“And they’re careful,” Clooger said. His voice was low and rumbling, like the deep hum of a purring cat. “We were holed up for a couple days before going in, and we didn’t see a single person. They don’t come out unless they have to.”
Meredith wrote the initials ADX on the whiteboard, along with a few other details from Hawk’s location assessment. She’d pilfered a printer and some paper from a Staples down the road and had Hawk jack the signal in her Tablet so she could print photographs. Taking one of them out of a manila folder, she taped it to a corner of the whiteboard.
“This is Andre Quinn as of last night,” Meredith said.
The photograph was green and dark, obviously taken at night with a special lens. Hawk had triple verified the image using photo recognition software, and he was 1
00 percent sure the photo was of Andre.
“So we know Andre is in there,” Meredith said.
“And we know a few other details, too,” Meredith continued. “Clooger and I consulted while Faith and Dylan were . . . what was it again?”
“Riding in a teacup,” Hawk said. It was often difficult for Hawk not to provide an answer he knew, even if it meant a punch in the shoulder, which Faith delivered on cue.
“If you’d been here for the earlier briefing, you’d know the walls at ADX are upward of ten feet thick throughout the facility,” Meredith said as she slowly paced back and forth. “More importantly, they’re made of concrete, stone, and marble, substances we all know Dylan is susceptible to.”
“You mean it’s like his Kryptonite,” Hawk said. He had recently taken to reading a lot of old comic books from a stall in the food court at the mall.
Meredith nodded tersely. “Throw enough concrete at Dylan Gilmore, and he’s got real problems to deal with. Interesting they chose a place that’s got more concrete than Hoover Dam.”
Faith squirmed in her seat a little bit.
“They’ve also modified the security system,” Meredith continued. “How does that work again, Hawk?”
“They’ve cracked the code on wavelength tracking, same as us. They appear to be using the same configuration I programmed into existing cell towers, which means they can sense a pulse from about fifteen hundred meters in any direction. If anyone flies near that place or tries to move an object telekinetically within a solid mile all the way around, they’d know about it.”
“Why can’t we shut it down?” Faith asked.
“Could,” Clooger said. “But we’d need to knock out the tower at the prison, which we’re assuming would be a dead giveaway.”
“So stealth is probably out of the question then—is that what you’re saying?”
“Yeah, that’s pretty much the deal,” Hawk said. “We’d have to get in real close, like at night, and even then they’d know the second we went into action with any kind of pulse activity. I’m guessing alarms, machine-gun fire, possibly a heat-seeking missile.”
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