Jared followed the fence line a few hundred feet until he reached a hidden gate, the lock powered by a solar keypad. The circuitry was buried within a thick protective screen, but had it survived the pulse?
He entered the six-digit code and was relieved to hear the lock click open. He propped open the gate in case he needed to get back to Cassie quickly and stepped onto the camp’s grounds.
A pungent odor filled the air, all too reminiscent of his journey here. Death at every turn. He pulled his shirt up over his mouth and picked up his pace.
He gasped when he saw them. Lined up, side by side in the camp’s outdoor classroom, three bodies, each with a bullet hole in their head. Percy, Ed, and Wade. From the stench and decomposition of the bodies, he guessed they had been murdered several days ago, possibly at the start of the outage.
Jared crumpled to the ground, dry heaving into the stony soil, mourning for his best friends and colleagues. He was too weak, too broken to move.
It wasn’t until he heard snapping branches and telltale footsteps that he gathered his wits about him, yanking his gun from his harness and raising it. He dropped it just as quickly when he saw his daughter standing before him, tears in her eyes. He ran to her, hoping to shield her from the sight of the corpses. Cassie had been close enough with these men to call them “Uncle.”
All thoughts of survival were discarded, replaced with yearning for revenge. Jared needed to know who was responsible — for the deaths of these men, for the carnage of everything he held dear. He would not rest until he was satisfied. Gripping Cassie tight with his left hand, he used his right to switch the radio on, push the button, and enter his authorization code.
“Took you long enough, Alphabet.”
Jared frowned. Rourke knew better than to call him that. Something had to be wrong.
“Been a little busy, tending to —”
Rourke cut him off in mid-sentence. “No matter what, keep the assets safe.”
Rourke’s voice started out strong but trailed off. Jared heard scuffling at the other end of the line, followed by a gunshot. Cassie screamed out in terror.
A new voice boomed across the transmission, and Jared clamped his hand across Cassie’s mouth so that he could hear the words. “Welcome to the dark, Jared. I should have known Rourke would turn to you.”
Jared knew that voice. It belonged to Eve’s ultimate boss, the head of the Institute, Reggie Emerson. Jared had never liked the secretive bastard.
Reggie chuckled before his tone turned icy. “Would you like to hear your wife, Eve, be executed next? Or are you going to listen?”
Chapter Nine
Written by Shalini Boland
Fear turned Jared’s body cold. He needed time to think.
Slowly, he peeled his hand away from Cassie’s mouth and they stared at one other, wide-eyed. Disbelieving. Silent. The Institute wouldn’t hurt Eve. They wouldn’t dare, surely? She was one of them. She was too important. Eve was the one who had given them the means in the first place. She was vital to their plan — whatever it was — wasn’t she? But no, they weren’t bluffing; they had just killed Rourke.
“Mommy,” Cassie whispered. “Mommy!” she screamed, this time. “Daddy, don’t let them hurt her!”
Jared crouched down and pulled his trembling daughter close to him, kissing her damp hair, inhaling her sweet scent, wishing he could’ve prevented her from hearing Emerson’s chilling words on the radio. He lowered his face so his cheek rested next to hers, and he whispered in her ear through gritted teeth. “No one is hurting Mommy. Do you hear me, Cassie? No one.”
“But that man said…”
Jared jerked his head back and stared into his daughter’s terrified eyes. “That man’s an idiot,” he said. “He’s lying.”
“You promise she’ll be okay?”
“Yes.”
Still gripping the radio in his right fist, he squeezed it hard, imagining it was Emerson’s head instead of a mass of wires and circuits. Imagining that he was crushing his brains and blood. Emerson’s grin turning to terror as he squeezed…
Jared shook himself. He was losing the plot.
He needed to move. Cassie’s screams would have alerted anyone close by to their presence. He had to get them out of there. The camp was compromised for now and he didn’t have time to scope it out.
No time to bury his dead friends. No time to mourn them even. He had to save Eve, and he had to protect Cassie.
Scooping his daughter up into stiff, aching arms, he jogged out of the camp security gate and back toward the ragged tree line. The rapidly-gathering darkness was now almost absolute. Their breaths, uneven and raw. Cassie’s sweat-soaked body, making his arms and hands slick.
“Jared, are you there?” Emerson’s voice came over the radio, infused with a note of irritation. “Did you hear me?”
As he ran, Jared pressed the radio button. “Yes. Yes, I heard you.” He came to a stop about twenty yards inside the woodland, squatted, and propped his daughter up against a broad-trunked tree. “Wait here, sweetie,” he whispered.
Pushing himself upright, he took a few paces back the way he’d come, staring across at the dark shape of the camp grounds. The calm, quiet night mocked the rising panic crashing through his body, just as the enduring landscape mocked the ongoing turmoil of humanity.
“What is it you want, Emerson?” Jared exhaled slowly, trying to sound calm. “Whatever it is, it’s yours. Just let Eve go and then you can carry on with whatever twisted plan you’ve got going on. But leave us out of it.”
“Glad you’re seeing sense, Jared.”
“How do I know you’ve even got her there? You could be…”
“Jared?” Eve’s voice came low and defeated over the airwaves.
“Baby, have they hurt you? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine…I love you.” Her voice broke, and then she yelled, “Forget me! Take Cassie and get as far away as you —”
A squeal and a thud cut her off.
“Eve! Eve!” he hissed.
“She’s alive.” Emerson’s voice was back on the radio. “For now. But I’m afraid that little stunt earned her a pretty little bruise on her face.”
Jared wanted to unleash all hell on the man, but Cassie was close by, her staccato sobs and shivers sending stabs of anguish through him. He had to keep things as calm as possible, for her sake. She was too young to hear any of this, but it was more dangerous to move her completely out of earshot.
“Tell me what you want,” Jared repeated.
“It’s quite simple. We’ll do a straight swap.”
Jared wondered what this powerful man could possibly want from him. His brain trawled the list of possibilities. Was it one of the prototypes? Is that what Rourke had meant by keeping the assets safe? But he’d lost all his electronic devices. If Emerson wanted any of his working tech kit, Eve was screwed.
“Eve for Cassie,” Emerson said.
For a moment, the impossible words hung in the air making no sense whatsoever.
“You…You want Cassie?” Jared thought he must have heard wrong.
“That’s what I said.”
Jared choked out a short laugh. “You’re dreaming if you think I would ever hand over my little girl to anyone, let alone a murderer. What could you possibly want with my eight year old daughter? You’re crazy.”
“So, should I shoot Eve? Or slit her throat? You can choose.”
Jared’s mind went numb. His head swam and for a moment he thought he might throw up. This could not be happening. Why had he let Eve go off like that? What kind of a husband would just let his wife go off into the murderous black night on her own, while he cowered in the house like a…like a…?
But she hadn’t given him a choice. Cassie was sick and Eve had gone. There was nothing he could’ve done to stop her.
Was there?
“Don’t hurt my wife,” Jared said. “Please. There must be something else you need. Anything. I’ll get you anything else. W
hatever you want.” He realized he was crying. His anger had evaporated and desperation had stripped him of his resolve. He sank to the ground and swiped a hand across his face.
“I’ve told you what I want, Jared. You know I won’t settle for anything else. Bring her to me, and you and Eve can go free. Your daughter is sick. You know she won’t survive out there. She has days left. Weeks if she’s lucky. With me, she’ll have a chance at life.”
“Shut up,” Jared snarled. “Shut your mouth. You’re not getting my daughter. However long she’s got, she won’t be spending a second of her precious, beautiful life with you! Why? Why is Cassie so important to you?”
“Calm down, Jared. Take a breath and listen to me. I’m going to tell you something. Something that is the God’s honest truth. Something that might make this trade much easier for you.”
Jared ran his hands through his hair and waited for the man to speak. Not holding out any hope that Emerson’s words would hold comfort, or make anything easier. Knowing that nothing would induce him to turn over his daughter to a lunatic.
“Jared…Cassie’s not your daughter.”
Chapter Ten
Written by David Wright
“What the hell are you talking about?” Jared asked.
Emerson’s voice came over the radio. “She’s not your daughter. She’s mine.”
“Bullshit,” Jared said, his eyes on his daughter, who looked at him confused.
“What is he talking about, Daddy?”
“Nothing, dear,” Jared said, putting a bit of distance between himself and his daughter, though not wanting to move so far away that she fell out of sight. Whoever attacked the camp could still be nearby.
“Don’t believe me?” Emerson asked. “Hold on.”
A moment later, the radio crackled and he could hear Eve’s crying.
“Tell him,” Emerson said. “Tell your husband the truth. Is Cassie mine?”
All he could hear was crying on the other end.
“Is she?” Jared asked, swallowing, turning away from Cassie and hoping she couldn’t hear him.
“I’m sorry,” Eve said.
Emerson was back on the radio. “Now, do we have a deal?”
Jared couldn’t believe it.
Eve had to be lying. Had to be.
With a gun against her head, she’d say anything. Yet, at the same time, the tone of her voice — he knew that tone. He’d heard it once before, back when she thought about leaving him, back before Cassie was born. She’d said that things “weren’t working out.” He’d practically begged her not to leave him. To give him another chance, to be the husband he should have been from the beginning. Shortly after that, she found out she was pregnant with Cassie, and they managed to work things out.
But what if her pregnancy was the real reason she’d wanted to leave — because she’d cheated on him, or maybe didn’t really love him?
“Well?” Emerson asked again. “Do we have a deal, or should I just kill her now?”
“I don’t know,” Jared said. “I need to think about it.”
“You have thirty minutes. I’ll be calling you back. Decide, or I’ll make your choice for you.”
The radio went dead and Jared stared ahead into the woods, so full of conflicting emotions, he felt paralyzed.
What if Eve was lying? She’d say anything with a gun to her head, wouldn’t she? She’d say anything to spare her child harm.
And that’s where things didn’t make sense. If Cassie was Emerson’s daughter, and he expected to trade for her, why would he drop this bombshell on Jared? Hey, I’ll trade you your innocent best-thing-that-ever-happened-to-you daughter for your lying, cheating wife.
If Eve had cheated, most guys Jared knew would’ve been so pissed, they might just tell Emerson he could keep her.
Yet, Jared couldn’t do that.
Can I?
Then another thought occurred to him. Perhaps Eve had gone along with the lie hoping he would take off with Cassie. Maybe she counted on him being like most guys and being so pissed that he’d just leave. Maybe this was her way of preserving their safety.
No matter what, he couldn’t see himself just handing over his daughter to some monster.
As he considered his dilemma, he heard footsteps behind him, and saw Cassie staring at him with a hurt look.
She’d heard everything.
“You’re not my Daddy?” she asked.
How could he possibly explain this to a girl who knew nothing about the birds and the bees? She was a wide-eyed innocent, and he wasn’t ready to have this talk, let alone suggest that her mother had been unfaithful, especially when Jared didn’t know the facts.
“I am your father,” he said. “He’s lying.”
“But Mommy said…”
“He’s making Mommy lie, Cassie.”
“Why?”
“I wish I knew.”
* * *
Eve glared at the bastard who broke her husband’s heart. She’d never wanted to murder someone before.
Now it was all she could think about.
Killing the bastard who not only threatened her family, but also betrayed the Institute and joined this weird ass no-tech cult. Worst of all, he’d used her device, the one that was supposed to help the good guys, against the nation and possibly the world, crippling it.
They were in his office in some underground bunker that looked like it had been in the planning for months, if not years. She wondered how long she’d been working for an evil madman.
Large glass lanterns cast flickering shadows on the wall, which kept making Eve think that someone else was in the room, even though they’d been alone since Ali brought her from the cell she’d been kept in the past couple of nights.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked.
“Taking my daughter back or…this?” he said, waving his hands about at the darkness and the lack of electrical power.
“Both,” she said.
“The Lantern,” he said, “happened a bit sooner than planned, otherwise I would’ve already arranged to pick up my daughter. But sometimes things don’t go quite as planned.”
“She’s not your daughter,” Eve said, pissed that she’d had to lie to her husband. While Cassie wasn’t Jared’s, she also wasn’t Emerson’s flesh and blood.
“She is the Institute’s property. Therefore, she is mine. Let’s not forget, you were barren before we helped you. You signed a contract. Be glad that you had her for as long as you did. If it’s any consolation, you did a wonderful job raising her.”
“The contract didn’t say anything about you coming and taking her! I was supposed to raise her as my own.”
“So long as you and your husband were able,” Emerson said, echoing one of the provisions she never thought could actually happen. “And now, you are unable.”
She wanted to launch herself across the room and gouge his eyes out. But the gun on his desk, and the two big men outside his door kept her from doing anything too reckless — yet.
She asked, “Why do you even want her?”
“You really haven’t put this all together yet, have you? And here I had been fearing that you’d figured me out months ago.”
“No! None of this makes sense. Why would the director of the Institute be against technology? And why would you want to take Cassie from me? She’s just your average little girl. A sickly one at that.”
“Oh, no, she’s so much more than average, Eve. So much more.”
* * *
As twilight tinged the horizon in red and violet began to swallow the sky, Jared and Cassie made their way along a path to a hidden auxiliary camp where they could rest, assuming they didn’t need to run off to meet Emerson somewhere. There were also supplies at the other camp, including much needed food, water, and light.
He hoped that whoever had sacked the main camp and killed all his people hadn’t discovered the second one. He wondered if Emerson had been responsible for the attack on the camp. It didn’t m
ake sense, but hell, little did at the moment.
Cassie had been quiet in the twenty-five minutes since Emerson’s call, likely lost in her own thoughts, maybe trying to reconcile the fact that Jared might not really be her father. The poor kid.
He still wasn’t certain what he would do when Emerson called with his ultimatum.
He couldn’t let Emerson kill Eve. Even if she had cheated on him, she must’ve had her reasons. She didn’t deserve to die. But at the same time, he couldn’t hand over his daughter to a monster capable of even making such a demand, let alone striking Eve.
Whether Cassie was biologically Jared’s or not, she was his daughter in every way that mattered. He had rocked her to sleep at night as a crying infant. He had made her boo-boo’s all better. He had read her stories before bed every night. He’d gone to her dance recitals, even when Eve was working late. Even if Cassie wasn’t blood, she was still family, no matter what anyone said.
And he wasn’t about to let her go.
As they approached the second camp, hidden just inside a cave system, he readied his 1911 pistol, and looked back to tell Cassie to wait.
As he approached the cave, he saw the signal again. The flashes of light that his wife had been headed toward. It flickered twice and then twice again a moment later.
He wondered if the light was Emerson, or if it was legitimate help. Maybe military? He wondered if that’s where Eve was, or if she’d been caught early in her trek before getting anywhere near the signal. If that were the case, he wondered if perhaps he should head toward it.
As he approached the cave’s darkness, he tried to peer through the gloaming and see any sign of movement. His flashlight had died last night and he’d given Eve all the glo-sticks. He would kill for either right now.
As he drew closer to the cave’s mouth, his heart pounded so loud he could hear it.
The Catastrophe Theory Page 4