Landlocked (Atlas Link Series Book 2)

by Jessica Gunn

  “A friend,” she said. “He’s good with ancient Lemurian medicines.”

  “He also appears to be an art collector,” I said.

  Valerie nodded again. “It’s complicated.”

  “Everything seems to be complicated with you lately.”

  “I’ve been busy, Trevor. There are people we need to find, some we even need to protect. This war isn’t what we thought it was, and the sides are even less clearly drawn.”

  I closed my eyes, willing my head to calm. “Make it stop.”

  Butch hurried back into the room. His arms were filled with jars, powders, and papers, along with a mortar and pestle. He dumped them onto the desk. “Your friend can leave if it’s hard to be in this room. Can’t imagine it’s easy with the Link Pieces calling out to the map.”

  “It’s been my favorite five minutes ever,” I snapped.

  Valerie shot me a look then stepped up to the desk. “What can I do to help?”

  “Keep him standing and conscious,” Butch said. “I can make a medicine that’ll calm the effects but… Val, Lemurians can’t have the map and I don’t have anything that will cure him. There isn’t a cure for something that’s plain unnatural like that.”

  Valerie circled back and walked me to a nearby chair. She slipped her arm under mine and carried me, my shoes scuffing the floor the whole way. “Sit,” she said.

  My head pounded, but everything else was less than what destroyed me at the outpost minutes before. How much back and forth could one body handle?

  After what felt like an eternity, a blunt was placed into my hand. “Smoke.”

  I lifted my eyes to Valerie’s. “Excuse me?”

  “It’s not weed, you moron,” she said, but she was smiling. “Butch made it. There’s not much—it’ll tide you over for now. You have to smoke it.” Valerie snapped her fingers together and a flame appeared. “Care for a light?”

  “Hilarious,” I said dryly. I did as I was told, the effect immediate. The haze in my vision dissipated and everything felt lighter, healthier. “Holy shit.”

  “It worked,” Valerie shot over her shoulder.

  “Of course it did,” Butch said. “Every time you start to feel the pull of the map, smoke.”

  The door slid open and clanged against metal with brute force. Someone barged in, completely ignoring Valerie and I. “Boss, we gotta go.”

  “What?” Butch asked.

  “They’re here, the hunter dogs.”

  Valerie’s eyes met mine. “The people hunting soldiers?” I asked her.

  She shook her head. “No, the ones hunting Lemurians. Well, both, I guess.”

  Butch ran up to us and handed Valerie a bag. “That’s all I’ve got for now. Get out of here, both of you.” His gaze fixed on me. “Get that map out of your head, kid. If they find out they’ll come after you before you die from it.”

  Of course they would. The Waterstar map was the only time-travel advantage Atlantis had over Lemuria. Lemurians could travel more freely, but having a map of all the connections ahead of time sure made things easier.

  Gunshots exploded in the hallway. Everyone jumped and I slammed my hands over my ears. The sharp, booming noise drilled into my head, marrying the aftereffects of the Waterstar map and multiplying pain. Butch gathered fire in his palm and shouted, “Get out of here now! I’ll find you after, Val. Go!”

  Valerie’s hands closed on my shoulders once more, and we were gone.

  oing on the next job with TruGates felt like walking through a field of buried landmines. I’d only slept for four hours when Mara had woke me up to announce that General Allen had an emergency assignment for us, and we were set to leave within the hour. I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to take orders from the General after last night. But with everything on the line, I didn’t know what else to do. And if I suddenly decided not to go, what would happen to the rest of the team? I had no doubt that the General would do something to them or my family if I showed any insubordination in front of the others. Besides, if I wanted to find out more about the Lemurians and now whatever it was that General Allen was up to, then I had to play along.

  I’d groaned my way through a quick shower, wincing each time I moved my arm the wrong way. It felt like my arm had started healing, but the bruise was horrific which meant the bone was totally screwed. I’d made sure to tug on a long-sleeved shirt before leaving, weather be damned. Hopefully no one would ask and I could get away with Josh not seeing my purple and yellow mess of an arm.

  No one spoke on our flight over. Josh sat on my good side, holding my hand as he memorized the blueprints of the Lemurian base we were scheduled to be raiding. It was a fairly straightforward mission. Go in, figure out what it was the Lemurians were hiding that had General Allen’s panties in a bunch, disarm or disable it, and get the hell out. Supposedly this compound was a small base of operations for the “black market” that General Allen’s superiors were under the mistaken assumption these “bounty hunters” ran. Odds were we’d really find Link Pieces in the form of art and old books, which I guessed could be considered black market items. Depending on how many there were—and what form they took—I planned to sneak them out on my person for safe-keeping, especially if any immediate screamed a SeaSat5 connection.

  Mara slept beside me on my bad side, though she lay far enough away that she wouldn’t accidentally hit my arm in her sleep. She’d had some leftover pain pills from an injury a few months back, and while they hadn’t dispelled pain, they’d taken the bite off. After living through days with the horrendously painful burn Thompson had inflicted on me years ago, this seemed like nothing. The guilt and fear hurt more than my arm did.

  The pain got worse every time I caught Truman’s questioning glance. Every now and then he’d stare at me, eyes wandering to my arm. I’d look down to find myself coddling it, like now. I slowly moved my hand away and readjusted my eyes to the blueprints in Josh’s hands.

  When we eventually landed, I slipped on my pack and weapon without showing discomfort. Not even Truman noticed, although that might have been because Mara talked his ear off. She took to her protective role with too much devotion given the perpetrator wasn’t on the plane.

  It wasn’t until we stood a few hundred yards from the warehouse complex that real fear set in. Warehouses were creepy, middle of nowhere buildings that, in most of the movies I’d seen, contained hazardous materials. Materials that could end all five of their lives, and possibly my own depending on what they were and how fast I could move.

  Adrenaline spiked my system; the pull I got when the super soldier half of me wanted to snap on tugged hard with a vengeance. This was a terrible idea. The dilapidated building sat wide out in the open, providing absolutely zero cover to use as we closed in. Holes where windows used to be showed no light or other signs of life whatsoever. And yet, we’d been sent here to hunt Lemurians anyway.

  General Allen set you up.

  The thought resounded through my head like an air horn. I stumbled and landed on my knees in a pile of dirt. Truman caught me from falling completely onto my face, but he grabbed my bad arm. I barely got my hand over my mouth to hide the yelp.

  Truman gave me a meaningful look, eyes full of concern and a demand to know what had happened. I shook my head in a tiny motion. Truman let go of his grip and followed beside me as we made our trek across the field and into the warehouse.

  The fact that we entered without resistance wasn’t lost on any of us. I couldn’t for the life of me understand why Eric or Weyland hadn’t scrubbed the job yet. Something was seriously off and it was painfully obvious with every silent, unhindered step.

  “Guys, don’t you think this is too weird?” I asked in a whisper.

  I received various shh’s in response.

  Regardless of what they thought, they weren’t going to stop. I swallowed hard. I trusted the five of them to maintain our relative security well enough, but I trusted the super soldier half of me more. I let her take over and t
he world careened into intense focus. I sensed no Lemurians in these halls. Were they hiding? Were there any EMF fluctuations that could screw me over later? I swirled a small amount of water in the air in front of me. My abilities still worked, and I received no further answers.

  At least until we found a room that housed something. Actually, it housed a lot of somethings, but only one of them caught my eye, sitting directly in the middle of the room. The crystal skull sitting on a pedestal entranced me, drew me in, except it wasn’t from wonder but confusion.

  Eric moved to touch it. I reached out and smacked his hand away. Link Pieces weren’t supposed to glow red, but it was definitely a Link Piece. It shimmered like the others did, but the coloring was off. The red glared at me.

  “That’s new,” I said. My voice echoed throughout the room and the walls. The hairs on my arms and the back of my neck stood on end. This is seriously wrong.

  “Come on, Chels. You’re the archaeologist,” Truman said. “Tell us what it is.”

  Before I could explain, a huge bang rang out from the doorway into the room we were in. Gunfire echoed after, lighting the place up with bullets and shrapnel. I dropped to the ground without finding cover. Eric, Josh, and Weyland took point and disposed of the Lemurians in a few shots, then ran into the hallway. Truman stayed behind with Mara and me.

  Was this what General Allen was after? He must have known it was a Link Piece. But the red had given me serious pause.

  “Why didn’t you want Eric to touch it?” Mara asked as we refocused our attention. “And what the hell is it?”

  “An artifact, obviously,” Truman said.

  I shook my head. “Nobody touch it.”

  The redness gnawed at me the wrong way. I’d never seen a Link Piece do this before. Maybe I could get rid of it by teleporting it out of here or—

  Waves of fire erupted out of nowhere, blazing throughout the room. The doorways were blocked off and fire soared for our faces. I sought out water and gathered it from anywhere I could find, forcing it into a wall in front of Truman, Mara, and me. The flames sizzled out before us.

  “Oh come on, soldier,” a man’s voice boomed. “Never seen a red Link Piece before?”

  “What?” Truman asked. Seconds later he went flying across the room into a pile of metal canisters.

  My eyes darted around, looking for an attacker, but smoke consumed the area. The man had called me soldier. He knew. And if he knew, these weren’t normal Lemurians.

  “Show yourself!” I shouted.

  “Chelsea, what’s going on?” Mara asked. I hushed her with a wave of my hand.

  Someone waltzed through the wall of flame and smoke—a tall, burly man. “Who gave you the right to break into our storehouse?”

  “Try placing more guards next time, asshole,” I shot back.

  He flicked his fingers and my body flew into Mara’s. We both crashed into a wall together. Telekinesis? That’s new, too. My bad arm slammed into the wall with a definite, sickening crack. All the air I had swept from my lungs, and I cried out as my eyes rolled back in pain. It sliced through me to my core and didn’t stop until I pulled Mara and me into a crouch.

  “That’s the funny thing about you soldiers,” the man said. “So arrogant. So cocky. Every single one of you, since the beginning.”

  I stepped in front of Mara. Truman lay in the pile of canisters a few yards away, unmoving. He’d hit hard. If I could keep Mara out of this asshole’s range, then all the better. I wanted to ask what made him different, why this Link Piece was red, and why they had a ton of other Link Pieces strewn around the room. But all I got were fireballs hurled toward us. I pushed Mara out of the way, then teleported across the room to Truman to block one meant for him.

  The man laughed and continued his assault. Every time he sent a fireball my way, I snagged water from the air to douse it. He left me no opening to do anything more than that. Shit. This guy was stronger, more in tune to his powers, than any other Lemurian I’d met before him.

  Then he stopped and laughed again. He lifted his hand, slid it forward an inch. Mara’s body nudged forward and at that exact moment the pull I’d been fighting since we landed jolted to the forefront of everything that I was. The super soldier part of me snapped into focus and I teleported behind Mara, mere seconds out of sync. I grabbed madly for her hand and braced for impact as his hand slid forward again. We flew backward, crushed against another wall.

  I screamed as my bones shattered. My arm, my ribs. Bones so small, all they did was snap under this Lemurian’s power. Mara ripped me from the wall, but left me on the ground. Instead of running away, the man walked toward us, ignoring Truman. He wanted me. They always wanted me, my power. My birthright. Mara stood her ground above me, pulling another gun from her right boot. She cocked it and aimed, firing off three shots.

  The man moved his hand, changing the trajectory of all three bullets. I laid there wishing this was all a nightmare. I knew it was only a matter of time before something like this happened, but now that it had, I wasn’t prepared. I stood as fast as I could and pulled my own second gun.

  “Soldier,” the man said. “You cannot win this fight.”

  “You’re as human as I am. Bullets will kill you, too,” I shot back.

  Mara’s mouth twitched like she wanted to retort, but the echo of Truman’s gun cocking swallowed her words. So slowly it could have taken an eternity, Mara looked to Truman, her hand flying out to stop him from attacking, from drawing the Lemurian’s attention. Truman’s finger closed around the trigger, the bullet piercing the man’s shoulder. The man shoved his hand toward Mara and me, sending us back into the wall with greater force than before as he simultaneously lifted his fire-holding palm toward Truman and the canisters. There was no way anyone in this room would survive if the canisters caught on fire.

  The Lemurian let go, the fireball soaring like a meteor at Truman. Through the pain, I clamped a hand onto Mara’s shoulder and forced myself to think of anything and everything that was safe.

  Home. Trevor. TAO’s headquarters. Weyland’s apartment. Josh.

  Josh.

  The fireball connected, and the room went up in flames.

  The last thing that registered were Truman’s screams.

  alerie deposited me in my quarters at TAO with instructions to use Butch’s medicine whenever I felt the effects of the map start to take over. There wasn’t much, maybe enough for a month or two, but it was all Valerie could give me, so I took it.

  “You need to call Chelsea. Right now,” she said. “Get her on the phone for me.”

  “You can’t call her yourself?” I asked.

  “She’d never pick up for me or an unknown caller.”

  I didn’t think Chelsea would answer a call from me, either, but I tried anyway. The call went straight to voicemail. “Her phone’s off.”

  Valerie scoffed. “Of course it is. Keep trying. First time you get her on the line, have her get you and then meet me at the Franklin.”

  “And how will I get in touch with you?” There were only so many crappy versions of Mega Rush I was willing to unleash on the world.

  “I’ll keep an eye out for you,” she said. “Don’t worry about me.”

  I leveled her with a look. We’d been friends for most of our lives. Of course I worried about her. But part of me realized, perhaps for the first time, she worried a whole lot about me, too.

  Our eyes met, emotion passing between us. She didn’t want to leave me here, half-dead thanks to the map, and I didn’t want her to go. Valerie had become the only lifeline to sanity in this mess, the only person on my side at all.

  Valerie nodded like she’d read my mind, then stepped back. “Take the medicine and get in contact with Chelsea. I’ll see you soon.”

  But as she moved to teleport out, the door to my quarters opened. Sophia stood on the other side, bearing witness to Valerie’s teleportation—a bright wave of fire in a dimly lit room.

  Valerie disappeared as Sophia
’s hands reached for a gun she wasn’t wearing.

  “What the hell?” she demanded.

  I sighed. “We have a problem.”

  “Yeah, a Lemurian just left your room,” Sophia said. “Now would be a great time to explain yourself.”

  “You and Chelsea are in danger.”

  I made them gather in the room holding the Waterstar map. It seemed appropriate. I had a whole checklist of things I needed to tell them, and almost every damn one involved that stupid map.

  “Where’s the fire?” Dr. Hill asked once we’d gotten together.

  “Someone’s hunting Atlantean super soldiers,” I blurted out. “I’ve been talking to Valerie, an old family friend. Dr. Hill knows her.”

  “Someone’s what?” Sophia asked.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know the full details. Valerie only said someone’s hunting Atlantean soldiers, and she thinks it’s tied to TruGates.”

  “The group Chelsea’s with?” Pike asked. His body tensed. “Explain.”

  “Valerie thinks TruGates, under the guise of a paramilitary group for hire, is hunting Lemurians. The ex-soldiers under the General’s command don’t know what they’re up against, except Weyland. Weyland used to work for SeaSat5, and he either hasn’t put two and two together, or is neglecting to accept the truth.”

  “Why would TruGates hunt soldiers or Lemurians?” General Holt asked. “As far as I know, only me, the President, and some of the Navy brass know about the war.”

  I shrugged. “Beats me. What’s clear is there’s more to TruGates than we know, and that Chelsea being there puts her in danger. If whoever in that command figures out what she is, her usefulness in hunting Lemurians may not outweigh the fact she’s a super soldier.”

  “It looks like we were right,” Sophia said. “Someone did place that Link Piece in the jungle ruins with intent on killing me or Chelsea.”

  “Probably you,” Dr. Hill said. “If TruGates already had Chelsea, knew about her powers, and knew that we only have the two of you super soldiers on tap, then the trap was for you.”