The Beginning

by Alice I Lunsford

  DESTINY

  The beginning

  By Alice I. Lunsford

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  To my readers

  Sneak-Peek: Destiny 2: Darkness Descending

  Copyright © 2018 by Alice I. Lunsford

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

  without the express written permission of the publisher

  except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  For permission, contact via authors website: www.aliceilunsford.com

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Printing, 2018

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to my family.

  To my husband, who has my heart and soul always and forever. To my children, who bring me greater joy and happiness than I could have ever dreamed of. To my mother, who sparked the fire of creativity in me as a child and continually fanned the flames. To my brothers, who were always there for me (even as kids when you were buttheads…) and who I know would kick some major zombie ass! Without you all in my life, this book would never have come to be. Thank you, and I love you all!

  Chapter One

  Temecula, CA

  Alex Peyton

  I wake in a cold sweat; muscles tense and a feeling of terror slowly ebbing. I sit up and rub my eyes as the nightmare slowly fades away. The tension still remains though, leaving me exhausted yet unable to sleep. Fuck, what time is it? I glance at the clock: 3:00 AM. Great, less than four hours sleep. Again.

  With a frustrated sigh, I climb out of bed. I know I won’t be getting any more sleep tonight, just like every other night, so I don’t even bother trying. Might as well find some distraction until my alarm goes off in a few hours. I quickly pull some shorts on over my boxers and leave the room with my cell phone tucked in my pocket. I don’t intend to use it anytime soon, but keeping it within reach is a subconscious necessity, ever since the call I missed from Jessica. The last call she made while alive.

  Guilt gnaws at me, and I quickly pull my thoughts back, tonight wasn’t going to be one of those nights. After grabbing a cold beer, I settle on the couch with my phone on the end table and turn on the TV to find something to watch. Nothing worthwhile on live TV at this time, so I flip to OnDemand and find a few new episodes of Supernatural, one of my favorites.

  As I’m starting the second episode my phone goes off, blaring and vibrating beside me. Who the fuck?

  Snatching it up I see its Mitch, and it's 4:00 AM. I pause the show and swipe to answer, but as soon as I bring the phone to my ear I can hear Mitch already talking.

  “Alex, thank God you’re up. We have a major problem. You need to get here, NOW.” Mitch’s tension-filled voice lodges a ball of dread in my stomach. Fuck.

  “Calm down man and tell me what the issue is.”

  “Containment went down. It’s been breached.”

  A chill ripples through me. Not good, so not good.

  “Did you run the protocols? Is lockdown in place?”

  “You know I ran them! It doesn’t matter, 7B made it out of the compound.”

  Shit. Shit. Shit!

  “How the fuck?” I pause and shake my head, I can’t worry about the how right now. “Never mind, what is Retrievals status?”

  “They are sweeping the Ortega’s now, no signs yet.”

  “We have an hour, MAYBE two, before traffic hits the Ortega Highway. I want you to put more men out there, I don’t care about their training. 7B CANNOT come in contact with civis, you understand me?”

  “Yes, but Retrieval is the only one equipped to handle this scenario.”

  “Fuck equipped! Get everyone who can use a gun on this. If they find 7B they are authorized to give one warning and then kill on sight if he doesn’t surrender.”

  “But…”

  “Don’t argue, Mitch. We both know what will happen if this isn’t contained. Take 7B down if you have to, just clean this shit up. I’m on my way, and when I get there someone better tell me what the fuck happened.”

  “On it.”

  I hang up and stare for a moment unmoving. My nightmares are nothing compared to what may be about to occur.

  ~~*~~

  Peyton Industries Site 1; Ortega Mountains

  45 minutes later

  Alex Peyton

  I arrived in record time and somehow managed to do so without getting pulled over. Small miracles do happen. Mitch is waiting by the building’s main entrance as I park my car and it looked like the news wasn’t much better by the way he wasn’t meeting my eyes.

  “What’s the status?” I demand as I slam the car door behind me and approach the building entrance where Mitch is standing. Mitch clears his throat awkwardly and fidgets with his hands for a moment before replying.

  “We’ve found 7B, he’s contained.”

  “Alive?” I ask in surprise. “I gave authority to shoot on sight.”

  “He surrendered, didn’t resist at all.”

  His answer, and the tension I can see in him, gives me pause. His body language screams bad news is coming, and I have a terrible feeling its going to make my day worse. Fuck.

  “What else?”

  “He was found off Central Avenue, northeast of the 15, in Lake Elsinore.”

  Double fuck.

  “Did you initiate Alpha Protocol?”

  “Yes, they are locking the roads down, telling drivers to return home as there’s been reports of a toxic airborne contaminant released in the area, but we don’t know if anyone came in contact with 7B that may be outside the quarantine zone. I mean, he crossed a major freeway and highway, plus it’s not like we can just slam a wall down around the city to keep everyone in.”

  Fucking FUCK!

  “Get a team on reviewing the street cams and any satellite shots of the area.”

  “I already have one on it. They haven’t found anything yet.”

  “Damn it…okay, just keep me updated if they find anything. Now tell me how in the hell did this fucking happen?”

  Mitch’s eyes dart around, landing everywhere but on me. I can tell he’s on the verge of panic. Shit can’t get much worse, so I’m at a loss on this reaction from him. I cross my arms and frown. I have zero caffeine and next to no sleep in me. I definitely have no patience for this shit.

  “Well?” I demand, barely stopping my foot from tapping impatiently.

  “It was Adams.” Mitch blurts out the words, but he’s still not making eye contact. Right.

  “Try again, Mitch.” My foot starts tapping and I drop my hands to my sides. I may have to punch something, or someone, real soon.

  “Fuck, fine. Okay. It was my fault.”

  This is like prying out teeth and already getting old.

  “Details are good, Mitch.”

  “It was an accident, okay? I was with Andrea. She was supposed to be working on the power grid, but I stopped by to check on her, and she was looking so hot I couldn’t resist.”

  “Are you telling me that you believe 7B is loose because you couldn’t keep your hands off your wife for a few short hours? Seriously, Mitch! Your shift is over in less than an hour and you stop for nookie. That alone is enough to piss me off! But, how the hell can that have anything to do with 7B getting out?” I can barely contain my rage at the absurdity of this. Mitch, ever steadfast and smart, act
ing like an idiot.

  “I know, I messed up bad. I KNOW! Andrea already read me the riot act. It was only a few seconds, I don’t know how 7B got out so fast. I literally only had enough time to pull her away, hold her against me and kiss her neck. She just giggled and pushed me away but stumbled and bumped her laptop keyboard, and suddenly the alarms were going off and 7B was out. Andrea checked, saw the grid was down in Containment. She says she doesn’t remember running any diagnostic or command that would do that, and it’s too complicated to do by accident. But how the hell else did it go down?”

  “Wait, there’s literally no way you caused this. Containment has a secondary power system that runs in conjunction with the main grid, and only two people have access codes to shut it down; Me and Dr. Blackburn. Even if Andrea somehow reset the grid there, Containment would still have power and no breach should have occurred. Has anyone checked the camera feed or been down to Containment since the breach?”

  “No, we’ve been focused on retrieving 7B.” Mitch said, shoulders easing slightly. Obviously, the news that he or his wife didn’t cause this was a relief for him, even though we were all still potentially screwed if 7B made contact with a civi.

  “Right, first step is to get someone to review the camera feeds. I’ll take a guard detail and head down to containment. Did any other rooms breach?” I said as I walked past Mitch and entered the building.

  “No, just 7B.” Mitch said as he trailed behind me.

  “Naturally…so, how did 7B get through the compound and over the walls without someone stopping him? I didn’t see any damage to the gates.” We were moving deeper into the facility as we talked, scanning our wrist implants to open the doors at each checkpoint. We were about to enter the elevator that would take us down to B6 where the security center, and my office, were located, when Mitch finally answered.

  “Honestly, we have no idea. I pinged the locators within minutes of the alarms going off, 7B was already outside the compound. His locator wasn’t moving, but when Retrieval got to the location it was obvious why. The bastard ripped it out!” The elevator dinged on our floor and we scanned through the final checkpoint between us and my office.

  “What?! It was implanted in his brain, how the hell did he do that?”

  “You got me, man. I wasn’t there when he did it.” Mitch said as we entered the security center.

  People were rushing around and shouting back and forth. The din was nearly painful after the silence of the elevator and floors above. I could see several day shift staff had been called in. Protocol usually meant everyone was called in, but some might still be en-route. The tension in the room was thick, it was almost like you could smell it in the air. I didn’t enjoy the feeling that built in the pit of my stomach when the tension around me was high.

  “Alex, Mitch! Thank God, you’re here.” Andrea rushed over. “Alex, I’m so sorry. Did Mitch explain what happened?”

  “Yes, and I’m certain neither of you did anything to cause this.”

  “Are you sure? I was running diagnostics on the power grid when Containment went down. I brought it back up quick, maybe five minutes, but 7B was already out.”

  “True, but you are forgetting the secondary grid.”

  I watched as Andrea’s eyes widened as my statement clicked in her mind. Then her eyes narrowed, and she frowned at me.

  “Blackburn.” The name came out sounding more like a curse than the identifier of a person. Yes, she still hated the Director of Research for B12. None of us really liked the man. He made my skin crawl, but I didn’t have any choice but to deal with him since Blackburn was a requirement for the contract on that level. As was our lovely, now escaped resident, 7B. This contract so wasn’t worth the money anymore.

  “Maybe. Until someone gets me the camera feeds and I head down and investigate, we really have no clue. I want you to grab a couple of the day crew that are here and have them start running through the feeds. Start at least 60 minutes before the alarms went off and go until I arrived. I want to know everyone’s location and movement in that window. Mitch, get me any guard detail that isn’t offsite and tell them to meet me on B12 by the main elevator.”

  “Understood.” Mitch replied then hesitantly glanced between Andrea and I. “Alex, what about the families and rest of the crew? Can we call them all in? Especially the families. You know people are going to start bailing if the worst has happened.”

  “Yeah, and we all know the safest place would be here for everyone anyways. If everyone knows their families can come here it’ll remove a lot of the stressors and people can focus, get shit done.” Andrea says quickly, her anxiety barely held in check. “I…I know it’ll help me a lot knowing Des and the kids will be safe here, with us.”

  Shit. I should have realized this coming in, but the thought never crossed my mind. Our facility was more than adequate to house all staff and their immediate families for years if need be. Mitch and I had discussed this back when I started up this research facility. At the time we were thinking more along the lines of a massive earthquake or foreign attack, not an escaped crazy government guinea pig.

  I thought for a minute as I looked between Mitch and Andrea. I knew they had kids down in Lake Elsinore, and if they didn't get them on the road here soon, they might not make it before 74 was shut down. A lot of the staff had children too. The thought of something happening to those kids made me ill. I nodded, my decision made.

  “Call them all in. Tell all staff to get here ASAP and tell them to try to get their families here too, but make sure they keep the info to a minimum. Maybe make up some story about how our advanced sensor equipment detected activity that could indicate a large earthquake, and so we are taking precautions and bringing them all in to keep them safe while we wait it out.”

  Andrea noticeably relaxed and smiled in thanks before she darted off with her cell in her hands, already dialing. Mitch nodded to me with a grateful smile and started off to fulfill my earlier request.

  With that out of the way, I just needed to get my gear from my office. I felt naked without my guns, and I had no idea what I’d find in Containment. I was never a fan of Monday’s before, but this one sure as shit topped the list of worst Monday in my 31 years of life.

  Chapter Two

  Lake Elsinore, CA

  Destiny Williams

  The loud blaring song of my cell phone ringer woke me from a pleasant dream. I stared blankly at it, my mind still fogged with sleep and barely conscious enough to wonder what was going on when the ringing stopped. I scrubbed at my eyes and looked around the room slowly. Not a hint of light peeked around the curtains. I considered going back to sleep and started to close my eyes when my phone started ringing again.

  Annoyed, I angrily snatched it off the nightstand and sat up on the edge of the bed. I was ready to lay in to them and give the caller a piece of my mind but felt my blood chill when I saw the name on my screen. My sister Andrea was calling me, and I felt a jolt of panic run through me as I quickly answered the call.

  “Drea, what's wrong?”

  “Des, thank God you woke up! You sleep like the dead and I was so worried you'd not answer.”

  “Haha, I do not. Seriously though, the sun's not up yet and you're calling me. What's wrong?”

  “Yes, look, I need you to get the kids and bring them to my work. Grab a bunch of clothes for everyone, and in my closet, there's a suitcase I need you to bring. Umm...Don't forget Ally's bear and Sammy's blanket, since getting them to sleep without them is impossible. Oh, and their tablets. Maybe some movies, I don't know how long we're going to be here...”

  “Drea, wait. What's going on? Pack stuff? Please, tell me what's happening!” I felt panic coursing through me as my sister rattled off her list. I knew where she worked was like Fort Knox and I knew something awful was happening, or about to happen, if she was having me wake up two six-year-olds and a three-year-old and pack them into the car this time of night. I took a calming breath and waited for her to answer
me.

  “Look Des, it may be nothing and I could be way overreacting, but if it's not...if it's something...I... something terrible may be about to go down, like something out of a horror movie kind of terrible. I can't go into specifics right now, but I promise when you guys get here, I'll tell you everything.”

  “Okay, but Chris and I don't have any clothes or stuff here. Just what we bring when we stay over.”

  “Shit, okay. Umm…Sammy and Chris are the same size, right? Just grab some extra clothes from his dresser and some shoes. Some of my stuff will have to do for you. I know you're taller than me, so maybe grab some of my capris, shorts, stuff like that? Just be fast, okay? Pack it up before you get the kids up.”

  “I'm not an idiot, Drea. I know it'd be a bad idea to wake them up then get everything together. Do you have suitcases or duffels somewhere I can grab easy?”

  “Yes, in the hall closet there should be a couple duffels on the top shelf. Look, I have to go. Just...just hurry, and be safe, okay?”

  I could hear the fear in her voice and it almost sent me over the edge, but I sucked in a deep breath and thought of the kids. I felt a fierce protective surge run through me and I knew I'd do whatever it took to keep them safe.

  “I promise, I'll be fast and safe. We'll be there soon.” I heard the strength in my voice and Andrea's sigh of relief made me feel more confident.

  “Great, thank you. They know you're coming at the gate. You'll have to show your ID to get in or you'll have to wait at the gate until I can get there and clear you.”

  “Got it, sis. See you soon.”

  “Yeah, see you soon, sis.”

  I hung up and paused for only a moment before rushing into action. I had too much to do and almost no time to do it in, but I'd be damned if I wasn't on the road in less than 20.

  ~~*~~

  Peyton Industries Site 1; Ortega Mountains