Nan blew out a shaky breath. “Scarcity. And hope.”
Selene’s brows shot up at the unexpected answer. “Did… did my mom tell you why she did it? Did she… did she regret what she did to us?”
Nan blinked and folded her hands in her lap. “The therapy was hard to get… expensive. The wait lists were too long…” She swallowed and took a deep breath. “But if you worked for the Coalition, you could bypass the lists and get a discount. Your mother…” Nan trailed off, her lips trembling.
“Tell me,” Selene whispered.
“She told me once that she got a job at Infinitek specifically so she could get the therapy. And she hadn’t even met your father yet…. They were both devastated when they found out the truth.”
Selene rubbed at her eyes, conflicting emotions ripping her up inside. “It’s not fair,” she said, her voice breaking.
“No. Life’s not fair.” Nan’s voice hardened, and she stood up and began briskly tidying the room, pushing the TV stand back into her closet. “Life’s not fair, but we do our best to survive it anyway.”
“Maybe I want to do more than just survive,” Selene muttered.
Nan whirled, her hands on her hips. “Child, you don’t remember the pandemics. People do terrible things when they’re scared, and right now, we’ve got a quarantine practically on our doorstep. I know you’ve been feeling stir-crazy, and you’ll be eighteen soon… but please tell me you haven’t forgotten the danger that’s out there.”
“How could I forget the danger?” Selene let the quilt go and stood up. “You never let me forget! Sometimes I almost want Infinitek to find me, just so I can stop waiting for them to come.”
Nan’s eyes widened at Selene’s outburst. “Is that all? Anything else you’d like to say?”
Selene dropped her gaze to the floor and bit her lip. It’d been months since she’d lost her temper. Fighting with Nan never did any good, anyway—just made her silent for a few days.
“Go on. Get it all out.”
Selene’s chest tightened. “Nothing. Forget it. I don’t want to say anything.”
Nan grabbed Selene’s wrist, turning it over and pushing her cuff up to reveal her Protected disc. “Infinitek hasn’t come because I made sure they can’t find you here.”
“Or… maybe they just aren’t looking anymore,” Selene mumbled.
Nan tightened her grip on Selene’s arm and stared into her eyes. “They will never give up looking.”
“You always say that, but—”
“Is that what you want for you and your brother?” Nan asked coolly. “Do you trust his life and yours with a corporation who won’t even release a picture of the inside of those camps? You’d prefer to be imprisoned?”
Aren’t we already? “No. I didn’t mean that…”
Nan watched her with that piercing gaze of hers for another moment, then finally spoke. “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear it then. You and Eli are safe here. We’re prepared for anything.”
“Okay. I get it.” Selene pulled her cuff back down to cover her implant. “I have to finish my chores.”
Selene hurried away without waiting for a response. The hallway was empty, and Eli was in the kitchen, engrossed in his math. Hopefully, he hadn’t heard any of that.
She grabbed the laundry from the porch and carried it out to the clothesline. The wind had picked up, blowing a loose curl into her face.
As Selene hung their wet clothing, her roiling emotions came back full force. One word repeated over and over in her mind.
Defective.
When normal people discovered the truth about the Protected gene therapy, they’d responded with fear. And hate. Normal people were afraid that if the Protecteds continued trying to have children, their altered DNA would pollute the gene pool and human purity would be lost forever. After a series of genetic purity bombings, Infinitek had forced the Protecteds into guarded camps.
Selene and Eli’s parents were already dead when the violence started… and Nan whisked them both away before Infinitek could take them by force.
Selene hung the last pair of jeans over the clothesline, her jaw clenched tight.
Temporary camps. To keep everyone safe, Infinitek had said.
Selene stalked across the yard to grab the last crate of jam from the porch. The root cellar was a few yards from the house, and dank air wafted over her as she descended the stairs. When she reached the bottom, she fumbled for the light chain. A single yellow bulb lit up the space.
Wood shelves lined the walls, packed tight with jars of preserved fruit and vegetables. They had more food than they’d ever need to sell, more than they could eat in a month. Nan’s words echoed in Selene’s mind.
We’re prepared for anything.
As Selene transferred the jam to the shelf, guilt won out. Nan wasn’t a Protected, and she hadn’t chosen to take that therapy. No. She’d chosen to give up a normal life to keep Selene and Eli hidden for the past eight years. And all Selene could do was act ungrateful and upset her.
As she climbed back out to the yard, resolving to apologize to Nan, she inhaled the telltale ozone scent of a summer storm approaching.
Of course. Dark clouds rolled along the horizon, heading straight for them. Had the sky just been clear, or had she been so distracted she’d missed all the signs?
She sprinted for the clothesline, wind whipping her black curls from her headband. Her tattered clothes and Nan’s jeans went into her arms first, followed by Eli’s too-small t-shirts.
He needed new clothes and shoes, but Nan’s bitstorage card had hit zero again. And she’d been reluctant to cart food down to the road, citing the oppressive heat. Maybe Selene could sneak down there tomorrow and try to sell some of their produce. Risky, since selling unregulated food was as illegal as a free Protected.
Thunder boomed in the distance, and the wind whistled through the trees and slammed against the screen door. Selene ran for it, weighted down with wet laundry. The first fat drops hit her shoulders as she reached the house. Nan was in the kitchen, chopping some of the last collards of the season and discussing fractions with Eli.
Selene dropped the laundry back into the basket, and a flash of lightning lit up the sky.
A crack sounded directly overhead, and they all jumped. The kitchen light flickered and winked out, plunging them into near-darkness.
Selene pushed open the screen door again. “I’ll get the buckets.”
The mass of dark clouds was nearly overhead, and the rain had intensified. From the porch, Selene checked the horizon to try to gauge how long it might last. These southern storms were nothing like the cold, gray drizzle she barely remembered from her childhood.
It had been cold in Washington, damp. But these storms were violent and unpredictable, appearing out of nowhere and dissipating quickly after they’d run their course.
At the edge of the sky, far to the southeast, she glimpsed a strange mass of clouds that seemed to rise from behind a distant hill.
For a moment, it looked like smoke. The kind of smoke an enormous fire would make.
Had she imagined smelling wood smoke in the air earlier? They weren’t experiencing a drought here, and those forest fires Scraggle mentioned were pretty far south, weren’t they?
The energy crackling through the air raced through her as she inhaled, and the charge made her feel more alive.
It’s rain. That’s what storm clouds look like. Soon she’d be seeing UFOs.
She laughed out loud at herself, and her mood lightened as she gathered the buckets from the side of the porch. She’d grab some candles next, just in case the storm lasted into the night.
Everything would be okay. Life might be boring here, but at least it was predictable. Like every storm, this one would rage for a short time, then fade away.
Just like they always did.
Georgia burned.
The flames glowed in the night, consuming everything in a narro
w path through the countryside. Smoke swirled across the hover’s windshield and obscured the view. Bas leaned forward in the co-pilot’s seat, adrenaline surging through him, his jaw tight.
They’d finally reached the quarantine zone. Enemy aircraft would be on high alert for anyone trying to escape the zone… or sneak into it. And Bas and his team of resistance fighters aimed to be inside of it within the hour.
Beside him, the pilot had gone pale, her forehead damp with sweat. Valerie hadn’t been with the resistance for long, and while this wasn’t her first drop, it had to be the riskiest.
“You good, Val?”
“Definitely not.” She let out a ragged breath. “How could anyone believe that’s a wildfire? What the hell kinda wildfire burns across three states in a controlled line?”
“Yep,” Bas murmured. “A barrier… and a distraction. They’re hiding something big this time.”
The fire that snaked across parts of Alabama, North Florida, and South Georgia wasn’t caused by drought, like the Corporate Coalition claimed. And they wouldn’t be burning valuable woodland at the edge of the zone to keep a “minor flu virus” from getting out. The Coalies were into some deep shit out here, jamming communications, lying through their teeth. They controlled the flow of all information with ruthless precision as they always had.
When the United States of America and the other major governments finally collapsed under the weight of too many mistakes, the wealthiest corporations immediately formed the Coalition and took charge to help with the “recovery” and establishment of new governments that answered to them. The people running each of the eleven member corporations had been, and still were, motivated only by profit and power—and they’d do anything to destroy a threat to their continued existence.
The corner of Bas’s mouth lifted. He and his team were most definitely a threat.
“Dammit. Where are the patrols?” Valerie smoothed back a loose strand of her blond hair, her hand slightly shaking.
“Trust the tech,” Bas said, keeping his voice even to soothe her nerves. “It works. It’ll cut through their jammers when we’re close enough.” Bas looked back to the sky, searching it for any sign of the enemy.
The tech did work, but sometimes it worked too late. At least this time they had a back-up plan. A cloak that would keep them off enemy radars and make them invisible to the eye. But it was a prototype, unproven in the field.
Val shifted in her seat and let out a breath.
“Xavier believes in you.” Bas said quietly after a moment. “You can do this.”
“You saying he didn’t just pick me ’cause I’m a Protected?” She winked at him, but there was still worry in her light eyes.
“He chose us because he knows we’ll succeed.”
Valerie nodded and went silent.
She wasn’t entirely wrong about why she’d been chosen for this. This team needed to be immune to whatever was inside the quarantine zone. So everyone on this mission, including Bas, was a Protected—genetically modified before birth with enhanced immunity. The first Protected child was born thirty years ago, in 2044, and most of the first generation were imprisoned in the segregation camps now. At age twenty-eight, Val was the most senior and experienced Protected pilot Haven had. She’d been the most logical pick.
“X seems to have a lot of faith in you, more than others…” Valerie trailed off, but Bas understood the unasked question. It wasn’t the first time he’d been asked about his close relationship with the resistance leader. X trusted Bas to lead tough missions and get the job done. Plain and simple.
“X cares about all of us equally,” Bas said smoothly. “He doesn’t play favorites. We’re all part of the Haven family, and we each have to do the jobs we’re best at. Haven’s mission is all that matters. We walk the Path, embrace the Points—”
“And then we change the world.” She finished Haven’s motto, the confidence returning to her face.
A light on the console map flashed green. Fifteen minutes to landing. Bas needed to join his team back in the main cabin soon. But first, they needed to get the hover past the patrols. This would be the moment of truth. The cloak would hold and sneak them into the zone… or they’d be caught and blown out of the sky.
Valerie quickly kissed two fingers and tapped a small image beside her—a picture of her husband and their daughter, Clara. That kid was special. She was the only second-generation Protected child at Haven who had been born without fatal birth defects. Superimmunity came at a steep price.
Bas tensed as Valerie’s knuckles went white on the controls, and anxiety flowed off of her in a wave. She adjusted the hover’s course, turning them directly toward the flames.
The alarm sounded a high-pitched whine.
“Shit.” Bas braced himself, his pulse pounding as he peered through the smoke-filled sky. The resistance hover wasn’t equipped to survive detection. It was equipped to hide in plain sight, a vehicle for subversion. Guerrilla warfare only worked if the enemy never saw you coming.
“A masked hover,” Val hissed. “Just ahead.”
A sleek craft materialized from the haze, moving fast. Valerie banked left, trying to avoid what looked like an inevitable collision.
Bas barely breathed as they slid past the other craft, mere inches from its hull. Val swerved away just in time, stabilizing them in a new course.
Now they ran parallel to the Coalition hover, within range of its guns. Bas’s pulse raced. Had it detected their near-collision?
No. X had been confident the cloak would function. And Xavier was never wrong.
“It’s working,” Valerie whispered.
The enemy hover sped up, and the flames below illuminated the design on its side.
Department of Pandemic Control.
Bas’s mouth went dry.
Beneath the lettering, the Corporate Coalition’s logo: an infinity symbol, gear, and memory cube inside a silver triquetra. Those three symbols represented the most powerful corporations, by far, in the Coalition: Infinitek, MetaTransport, and Calliope6.
His muscles bunched in automatic response, preparing for a fight, and his pulse pounded in his ears as he watched the display for the cloak.
“Keep holdin’, baby,” Valerie whispered. “Keep. Holding.”
And it did.
Excitement spread in Bas’s chest even as sweat popped up on his forehead from the tension of running directly alongside the enemy hover.
The cloak worked.
The enemy hover veered sharply away, heading straight into the zone. They hadn’t been detected.
Valerie let out a low whoop and grinned at him. “That was too close.”
“It always is.”
She let out a shaky laugh. “What’s your mission count?”
“Too high.” Bas had detonated bombs, sabotaged corporate resources, hacked and erased research—but none of those missions had been as important as this one.
His knee started to move involuntarily—they needed to be on the ground. Now.
Their top resistance agent, Jeremiah, had left on a secret mission for X over a month ago in the Deep South, but when Pandemic Control had arrived, he’d gone dark. Jeremiah wasn’t a Protected, and Xavier had thought him likely sick or dead. Until ten hours ago, when a message had arrived through the old analog white space with Jeremiah’s credentials attached.
It had contained coordinates with a single coded message: Help.
Haven had undermined the Coalition for over twenty years in secret, but all that would be over if they captured Jeremiah and realized who he really was. They’d peg him for a terrorist and torture him. Then everyone in Haven who had escaped the Coalition’s grasp—every person who fought against corporate tyranny to restore the old freedoms and every Protected who had escaped Infinitek’s brutality—they would all be in immediate danger.
And Bas couldn’t lose a family again. He had to bring Jeremiah home, but if that wasn’t possib
le…
He’d been instructed to make sure Jeremiah’s secrets died with him, and if he had to make that decision, he wouldn’t hesitate.
“ETA, ten minutes.” Valerie glanced at the picture of her husband and daughter, then adjusted her controls. “Starting our descent.”
“Drop us and get the hell out of here, Val.” Bas stood. “Get back to Haven safe.”
“Don’t have a choice.” Her voice was strained. “I promised Clara I’d beg popcorn off cook for a movie date. But the second you comm for extraction, I’ll be on my way.”
“I know you will.” Bas squeezed her shoulder and headed back to the cabin, his heart rate rising again at the prospect of landing. He left the cockpit door ajar so he could still see the windshield.
A glint of metal caught Bas’s gaze as he entered the dim cabin. Their tech, Nova Vasquez, sat in her seat, anxiously twisting her star pendant. Her brown eyes glittered in the dark as she looked up at him.
Rory Kerrigan was hunched forward beside her, running a thumb along the scar on his cheek, a familiar tic of his before every dangerous mission. They’d found Haven together, and they’d been through far worse than this in the past eight years. But they’d always come out of it in one piece. If there was one fighter he’d always want on his team, it was Rory.
Across from Rory, Lex Drago feigned sleep. The scout looked too young to be here—like a boy in fatigues with her short auburn hair and small frame. But looks were deceiving. She was strong. She’d been through hell—suffered the worst fate a Protected could face—without losing her mind.
“Gear up,” Bas ordered. “Ten minutes to landing.”
“Hey,” Nova said, slipping out of her harness. “What the hell happened back there? Thought you two were about to get us shot down.”
“Nah.” The corner of Bas’s mouth lifted. “That was Jeremiah’s prototype. Working.”
Rory elbowed Nova. “What were you saying again? About how the cloak would never work?”
Nova rolled her eyes and reached up, grabbing the communications gear from storage. Rory helped her lower the heavy pack to the floor.
Defective (Fractured Era Book 1) Page 2