Olivia sensed he was holding back some pertinent information, but there was no time to fret about it. She smiled at her two young charges and picked up the pace again. How long will we need to stay in the mountains?
Find a safe and comfortable spot and stay until the airships return to the area. They can land and board passengers in the foothills as well as on the plain.
We'll have one big picnic. Most brought food and water, so we should be fine until then.
Olivia waited for several minutes for Hernando's response but there wasn't one. She didn't feel he was in any danger, and reckoned he was as distracted as she was, so she put it out of her mind for now.
Fifteen minutes later, they reached the slopes of the foothills skirting the taller peaks and stopped to rest. A low mesa located a hundred feet above them appeared to be an ideal location for their group to settle down and await rescue. She parted company with her two young friends and joined the other security personnel to search for a pathway leading upward to the site.
A narrow trail, looking about as wide as a thin Pure Blood matron, appeared to be their sole option. Its twists, turns and switchbacks were enough to give Olivia vertigo, but she put on a brave face and helped the others maneuver the treacherous route. She comforted her charges by explaining that the airships could land on the mesa's wide, flat surface; they would not need to travel this path again.
"Where is Hernando?" Annara asked Olivia as she sat on a low rock, resting after the long climb. The rear guard of security personnel had caught up with the head of the parade now sitting atop the mesa. "I couldn't see where he was in all the confusion, but he's not here, is he?"
"No, he went back to help the people who came by land transport." Olivia tried not to act worried, but fatigue and worry were catching up with her. "I'm sure he's fine, and the land transports are on their way."
Annara reached into her leather pouch, slung low across her hip, and pulled out her binocular-like goggles. She put them on and faced the command center, scanning the horizon for several moments. "Ah, I've spotted them. You'd think they'd make better time than we did on foot, but I see how the sandy soil is causing some issues with their treads. They are slower than a desert shell reptile. Would you like to see?"
Olivia stood and accepted the goggles, observing the approaching steam-powered vehicles. Something appeared off. "How many land transports were there altogether?" she asked.
"I believe six." Annara frowned. "I only counted five just now. How many do you see?"
"Five. One transport is definitely missing." Olivia spun the outer ring of the right goggle lens frame to sharpen the image. "Another thing is missing, too—I don't see any nanobots coming after them. The locusts appeared to have reached an invisible barrier of sorts and frozen in place."
Annara shielded her eyes with a hand and gazed across the horizon. "You're right. The evil chattering things have stopped—presumably at a designated radius from the command center. I suppose we didn't need to run so far to get away from them, but as you Earthers say, 'Better safe than sorry.'"
"Exactly. I'm glad we got all these people far away from that... whatever it is. I won't call it a protective device anymore." The missing land transport bugged Olivia. She tried hard not to jump to conclusions. "I suppose the sixth transport wasn't necessary, what with all the scientists and techs who stayed behind to stop the nanobots."
"True. Caveman and the others will need it to catch up with us in the airships." Annara narrowed her eyes as she observed Olivia's frown. "You sense something has gone wrong, though, don't you?"
Olivia forced a chuckle. "You don't believe in mind-reading and crazy psychic stuff, remember?"
"I don't believe in it, but I know you, Hernando and Valori do." Annara crossed her arms and tilted her head. "What are the voices in your mind telling you to do now, Olivia?"
Hernando? Valori? Everyone on foot has reached the hills, and those in the land transports are almost here. What should I do?
Olivia furrowed her brow, listening for a faint voice or any thought she'd know for certain came from her friends. Nothing.
Annara raised an eyebrow. "They're not answering, are they?"
"No, they're not." Olivia shrugged. "They're probably busy. I should keep busy, too. We've got a lot of people to watch out for up here, and more are on their way. My little running companions enjoy getting too close to the edge of the mesa, so I need to keep an eye on them."
Annara placed a hand on her shoulder before she could return to her babysitting duties. "Stop. I'll watch the brats. You need to be with Hernando."
"I'm sure Hernando is in one of the transports below. He'll be here soon enough." She plastered a smile on her face. "Come on, let's relax for a bit. This is one big picnic from the look of it. Glad to see folks brought large shawls and blankets for sun blocks. It gives us places to sit on the ground comfortably."
They strolled back into the thick of things and sat down with the parents of Olivia's new little friends. She shared some of their packed lunch and sipped cool water from a wineskin sort of container. Time passed slower than a wet week. The land transport passengers arrived at the foot of the hills and made their way to the top of the mesa.
"That's some climb," Reyna, one of the security personnel, announced as the last of the group made it up the trail. "It gives me a new appreciation for the rock jumpers."
The broad-shouldered woman spotted Annara and Olivia and sat down beside them. Quadsang or Overseer? Olivia wasn't certain of Reyna's heritage, but the angular features and flash of fangs said she was a native of BloodDark. "All present and accounted for," Reyna said, smiling.
"Except for those who stayed behind in the command center, right?" Olivia tried hard not to mention Hernando's name when it became apparent he wasn't with this last group. Annara looked askance at her friend, but said nothing.
"A handful stayed behind. I suppose they'll go back with the high priestesses in their vehicle, although I never saw how the two of them traveled." Reyna furrowed her pale brow. "Must have been by land transport, right? They weren't on the airships?"
"We assumed everyone left behind would take the sixth transport back," Annara said. "We only saw five approaching."
Reyna nodded. "The sixth wouldn't start. Once those nanobots got well up inside the works... Well, it's broken forever. Not even the Earthers could fix it. We had to divide those passengers up and squeeze them inside the remaining five functional vehicles. It's one reason why we traveled so slowly. We were overweight and sunk in the sand in places. The road coming out from Penumbra City was much more solid and compacted."
Olivia felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise. Hernando had stayed behind with Caveman, Valori and the others. How would they get out of there if they couldn't stop the homicidal nanobots? How would they prevent Colonel North and his troops from taking over the command center again and holding them prisoner? Most of those left behind were eggheads and technicians—not battle-hardened fighters like herself and Annara.
Olivia jumped to her feet. "I need to go back."
Annara flashed her a quizzical look but stood. "You hear something from Hernando?"
"They need us." Olivia turned to Reyna. "Which one of the land transports is the fastest?"
Reyna pursed her pale lips and furrowed her brow. "I'd say number three is the fastest. It's the newest in the fleet."
"All right, we'll take it. We'll bring it back. If not, there's plenty of space in the airships to take the people who traveled by road."
Olivia jogged to the trailhead and started her descent. She hated how the path wound its way like a snake to the valley floor, no wider than her foot in places. She glanced back and noticed Annara wasn't right behind her. Olivia realized Annara was acting responsibly. She wouldn't leave without first telling the other security personnel where they were going.
"Hey, wait up. Do you know how to drive one of those things?" Annara shouted, pointing to the land transports below.
; Olivia paused to give her friend time to catch up. "If it's anything like a car, I can drive it. It's handling the treads which gives me some concern. At least we don't have to worry about a flat tire."
"Almost there... Got ya." Annara exhaled a long-held breath once she reached Olivia's position. "Treads are better on rough terrain."
"I suppose so. We won't be overweight, so we shouldn't sink in the sand." She looked down at her feet and away from the drop below. "Come on. Let's hurry."
It felt like an eternity, but at last they made it to the vehicles. Olivia frowned when she viewed the complicated dashboard and hand controls in transport number three. "Why did I expect this thing to work exactly like an automobile? It's more like an alien yellow school bus."
Annara entered and closed the vehicle's door behind her, locking it with a crossbar-styled bolt. "You Earthers always expect things to look and work the way you make them. Different world, different ways of looking at things. It's similar, though?"
"Close enough. Here goes nothing." Olivia pressed what she thought was the start button and waited for the engine to rev up. "Weird."
"Why are you waiting?" Annara asked. "It runs on sunlight. The steam heats up quickly and propels it along. It's waiting for you to tell it to go forward."
"Oh, right. Electric cars are silent and don't vibrate too much, do they?" She moved what she thought was the gear lever into drive and put her foot on the solitary pedal. "Hmm, I found the brake." She lifted her foot and the vehicle inched ahead. "Convenient. Now, if this steering wheel wasn't bow-tie shaped I might figure out how to turn this thing around..."
After several false stops and starts, Olivia managed to pull the transport from its parking space beside the other vehicles and turn it around to head to the site. Just as she felt she was getting the hang of it, the vehicle fishtailed as she maneuvered it through loose soil. Annara slid across the bench seat behind the driver's stool and slammed into the semi-opaque sidewall.
"Watch it!" Annara shouted. "You could flip this thing over."
"Sorry." Olivia bit her lip as they hit a bump. "The steering mechanism takes a bit of getting used to. We're making good speed, though. We're almost to the line where the nanobots halted. What should we do about them?"
Annara stared hard across the horizon. "Drive over them. Squash them like...ants? What's the Earth expression? 'Squash them like ants,' I think I read in one of those silly novels you sent me."
"Ew, sounds gross, but you're right. If they're dormant, they shouldn't be able to crawl up inside and cause trouble."
As they approached the outer perimeter of the nanobots, Olivia felt a bit squeamish, but she persisted. She had to reach Hernando and the others. Somehow, she knew it was imperative to get to them—the sooner the better. She had to know they were all right.
Spotting a less congested spot of miniature robots, Olivia steered the vehicle toward it, lifting her foot off the pedal to gain the maximum speed.
"All right, hang on. Here we go..."
Olivia hunched her shoulders and gritted her teeth as the metal treads made contact with thousands of nanobots beneath them. Annara covered her ears with her hands. The crunching and scraping of metal against metal was louder than either had expected.
"Squashing ants doesn't sound like this, does it?" Annara shouted over the metallic din, frowning. "Can you drive faster over them?"
"This is all it's got to give. I'm afraid of them getting lodged in the treads." Their speed slowed and Olivia tried tacking back and forth to dislodge the metallic devices from the underneath of the vehicle. "I wonder if we shouldn't get out and walk at this point."
Annara shook her head. "Let's go as far as we can in this transport. They're almost hip-deep here. We don't want to be caught off guard in case they're reactivated."
"Right." Olivia steered around several larger robots and material crates located along the perimeter of the site. The nanobots thinned out at this point. "We're through the thickest part," Olivia said several long moments later, nodding to the view in front of her. "Look up ahead... We've almost made it to the command bunker."
"Park close to the door in case we have to make a fast escape."
Olivia pulled up next to the building and fiddled around with the start button until she managed to turn off the vehicle. "There. We did it." She stood and stared at the exit, hesitating. Hernando, are you inside? Valori, are you here?
Annara patted her shoulder. "Are you picking up anything?"
Olivia smiled at her friend, knowing it didn't hide the fear in her voice. "No, I can't hear anything. Could be the walls are too thick?"
"I reckon that's it." Annara reached into her bag and pulled out two small knives in decorative handmade leather sheaths. She placed one in Olivia's hand. "I know we weren't supposed to take any lethal arms on the airships, but I feel naked without some kind of back up weapon."
"Good idea." Olivia gripped the knife and took a deep breath. "Let's go."
They exploded out of the transport and in two leaps reached the bunker door. Olivia grabbed the round handle and felt relieved to find the door wasn't locked—she hadn't thought through what to do if it had been. After several rotations of the handle, the door swung open.
"I'll go first." Annara moved Olivia aside and entered, knife at the ready. Olivia followed, unsheathing her knife as well. They tiptoed through the tunnel.
The command center was empty.
Chapter Fourteen
"Where else could they have taken shelter from the nanobots?" Annara asked. She searched throughout the echoing command control chamber, knocking over chairs and peering under desks and consoles.
Olivia checked out the small side offices. "No one home. There must be another passage leading from here to another building in this complex. Look for a hallway, a trapdoor, a sign, anything."
Annara raced about the room and kicked a tall metal filing cabinet away from the wall. "Nothing. I thought perhaps it concealed a hidden doorway. I remember reading about a hidden door in one of those silly novels you sent me to read."
"Really? Which one was it?”
Annara shrugged. "It was the story where the heroine found a passage behind a piece of furniture leading to a secret laboratory. Of course, she thwarted the mad doctor's evil scheme and rescued the good-looking detective who'd been kidnapped, and they all lived happily ever after."
Olivia chuckled. "Typical romantic-suspense plot. We'd be so lucky to find one so easily. To think, in this age of computers they would even waste time and money lugging one of these antique cabinets with them all the way to..." She frowned. "This could be our clue after all."
Olivia approached the filing cabinet and opened the top drawer. It was half-filled with print-outs of site statistics, building blueprints and other schematics. She closed it and opened the second drawer down. "You know, it's suspicious this cabinet isn't locked." She rifled through papers which appeared to be personnel files. Bending to open the bottom drawer, she noticed a straight crack on the floor paralleling the wall. She ran a finger along the seam and traced out a square as large as an old-fashioned telephone booth.
"You've found the trapdoor." Annara knelt beside Olivia and pried at the crack with her knife. "There must be a way to open this."
"Hmm, in the movies there's always a secret switch, lever or panel somewhere close." Olivia searched around the cabinet and noticed a usual outlet plug on the wall behind it. They scooted the cabinet off the square and then flipped open the cap to reveal a red button. She grinned. "Ah-ha. Here goes nothing."
She pushed the button and the trapdoor slid back, revealing a long, white, painted metal ladder, lit at intervals with security lights. Sheathing her knife, Olivia swung her legs over the side of the opening and climbed down the ladder, with Annara close behind. They climbed what felt like several stories before reaching the bottom.
Olivia turned from the ladder and gasped.
"What is it?" Annara whispered.
"Truth is strang
er than fiction," Olivia murmured. Before them stood a lighted conference table, situated in the middle of a cavernous space. It looked like a scene from Dr Strangelove.
And it wasn’t empty.
"You've found us," Colonel North said as they approached the large oval table. "Here I thought our guests wouldn't be able to reach anyone telepathically down here, shielded by the rocks as we are. Particularly with the lead vein running beneath these hills." He smiled. "The first Pure Bloods knew what they were doing when they built their weapon in this region. It's the perfect place to weather a nuclear holocaust."
"And do you plan on starting a nuclear war, Colonel?" Olivia looked past the infuriating man and two of his aides to make eye contact with Hernando. He sat slumped in his chair, his crossed arms propping him up on the conference table. She did her best to hide her worry and keep a calm expression. Are you okay?
Can't think well. Drugged. He gave a weak smile. Find Valori. Missing.
"Where are the others?" Annara demanded. "We left more behind than just the ambassador and a few technicians." She approached Dradix sitting to left of Hernando. "Has anyone been harmed?"
"We are well enough, but our hosts have tried to dampen our telepathic communications. They seek information and don't want us to escape." Dradix averted his gaze as one of the soldiers stood behind his chair. "They're holding Drucinda and the others hostage until they can locate the new Alphan high priestess," he said under his breath.
Annara moved behind the soldier and brought her knife to his neck. He gasped. She growled. "I will cut this one unless you tell us where you have Drucinda and the others."
North gestured for his people to disarm Annara, but Olivia knew the former Resistance fighter would have none of it. Before the closest soldier could reach her friend, Olivia grabbed the woman from behind and pulled her knife out and held the point just above the kidneys. The young soldier began to shiver with fear. Olivia knew this wasn't what they expected.
"Look, we don't want to hurt any of you, but we want our people released so we can leave in peace," she explained. "It's that simple."
Olivia's Decision Page 13