by Jon S. Lewis
“Wait,” she said. “I need to tell you something.”
His heart started to pound.
She took a deep breath. “This is totally embarrassing, so I’m just going to come out and say it,” she said. “I need to apologize.”
“For what?”
“I know you still have feelings for Lily and . . . well, I need to respect that,” she said. “Danielle told me that you two are perfect for each other, and I don’t want to get caught in the middle of it. It’s not fair to either one of you.” She pulled him toward her and kissed him on his forehead. “Good night.”
Numb, Colt thought as he walked down the path back toward his dorm. Numb to the touch of Stacy’s lips. Numb to the devastation on the campus. Numb to the storm of sirens and flashing lights. Numb to the body bags.
The skin of his soul thickened with the skin of his body. And this, he thought, this is how the Thule did it—a singular focus on the mission set before them and no extra thought or feeling or pain given to anything except that mission. He knew what their fury tasted like. It sat in the back of his throat now, metallic and strangely sweet. Pain was only spice to this sugar, devastation like yeast.
“No! Please, no!”
Colt stopped when he heard Glyph’s voice cut through the cool mist.
“I’m not one of them,” Glyph said. “I’m . . . please. You can’t.”
Colt ran off the path and into a grove, where he saw Glyph backed against a tree. Pierce was holding a gun to the alien’s midsection, which according to their xenology textbook was where the Fimorian brain was located.
“What are you doing, Bowen?”
“Back off, McAlister!” Pierce said without so much as looking at him.
“Please . . . ,” Glyph said, his voice weak.
“He’s on our side.”
“No, he’s not. He’s one of them!”
“I’m more Thule than he is, so if you want to shoot someone, why don’t you shoot me?” Colt walked toward Pierce with his arms held wide to show that he wasn’t armed.
“Don’t tempt me,” Pierce said.
“Your dad is going to make it,” Colt said, each step slow and methodical. “They’re moving him to Fort Meade. Doc Roth even said they could get him a prosthetic that will look and act like the real thing. It even has nerve endings.”
“I know what you’re trying to do, and it won’t work.”
“Listen, just give me the—”
“Shut up, okay? Just shut up!”
Glyph winced as he closed his eyes.
“The universe is bigger than we thought,” Colt said, trying to keep a steady voice. “But that doesn’t mean everyone and everything out there is our enemy.”
“Think, McAlister. Sooner or later they’re all going to turn on us.”
“No, we won’t,” Glyph said, his voice feeble as a tear ran down his cheek. “Please, we came to help you in your fight. You . . . you must believe me.”
“Liar.” Pierce curled his lip into a snarl.
Colt leapt. He snatched the weapon away, tossed it, and had his fist cocked to flatten Pierce when Glyph called out, “No. Don’t. He’s scared, that’s all.”
Pierce exploded, but not in anger. Sobs, so consuming Colt thought the cadet would rip his lungs out. Glyph’s long arm snaked around Pierce’s ribs and he pulled him tight. “Come,” he said. “Let’s go find your father.”
Pierce nodded and let Glyph lead them in the direction of the commissary.
: :
CHAPTER 26 : :
As news of the attack spread, people around the world fled dense population centers in search of somewhere to hide. The Black Hills. The Gobi Desert. Pitcairn Island. Even the boreal forest of Canada, which was supposed to be uninhabitable in the winter.
Some tried to pack things like precious jewels and fur coats, afraid that looters would break into their homes, but most stuck to canned goods, water bottles, and weapons that ranged from baseball bats and butcher knives to hunting rifles and handguns.
Colt and Oz sat in Grandpa’s apartment, watching a reporter from one of the twenty-four-hour news networks interview Senator Bowen in his hospital bed. His hair was perfect, his teeth almost too white, and his skin looked orange from all the makeup. But his eyes were heavy and his voice was weak.
“Check it out,” Oz said. “Pierce is in the background. See him?”
“Yeah, I see him,” Colt said.
The reporter asked the senator about the attack and what his first thought was when he saw the Tracker, but when she asked him about the rumors of his affair with the Secretary of State, Pierce cut it short.
“No way!” Oz shouted as he watched Pierce knock the camera out of the cameraman’s hands. It fell to the floor, bouncing as it continued to record Pierce’s boots and a litany of colorful language as he threatened to drop the reporter through a portal if she didn’t leave.
“That was classic,” Oz said as the broadcast went to commercial. “I mean, not that I blame him. But can you believe that?”
“It was stupid,” Colt said as he flipped through the channels. “People are going to see his uniform and think we’re all like that.”
“People are going to see a son standing up for his dad,” Oz said.
“Whatever.” Colt stopped when he saw aerial footage of the Manhattan Bridge. The lanes that led into Manhattan were empty, but cars were stacked across the lanes leading out, and none of them was moving. People were getting out of their cars and running. Most didn’t bother shutting their doors. “We should be there helping them.”
“The National Guard is already there,” Oz said. “Besides, the Army Corps of Engineers couldn’t build a bridge fast enough to help them. What would we do?”
“Anything is better than sitting around here waiting for orders.”
“You won’t have to worry about that much longer.” Grandpa walked into the room holding two plates stacked high with roast beef sandwiches on rye, pickle spears, and Ruffles potato chips. “We’re packing up and heading west.”
“Back to Arizona?”
Grandpa shook his head. “The federal government is moving to what the Joint Chiefs of Staff believe is a more defensible position, west of the Rockies. The cadets of CHAOS Academy are part of the security staff that’s going to protect the caravan—only you aren’t cadets any longer. You’ve all been given field promotions.”
“What, so we’re generals now?” Oz said.
“Not quite,” Grandpa said. “They’ve come up with a new title. Junior Agent.”
By the look on his face, it appeared as though Oz just finished smelling a bag of week-old gym socks. “Junior Agents? That’s lame.”
“You also get live ammunition,” Grandpa said. “And you get paid.”
“How much?”
“It won’t really matter if we don’t find a way to stop the lizard men,” Grandpa said as he set the plates on the coffee table in front of the boys. “Anything new?” He nodded toward the television and sat down in the overstuffed rocking chair he’d had delivered from his house back in Arizona.
“Not really,” Colt said.
“I guess no news is good news.”
Oz was set to take a massive bite from his sandwich, but he stopped and set it back down. “Mr. McAlister, I know you’ve done an awful lot for me . . . you know, with getting me reinstated and everything.”
“I didn’t do much of anything,” Grandpa said. “Besides, it wasn’t like you did anything wrong.”
“Still, thanks,” Oz said. He paused a long moment, his eyes distant as though he was recalling a forgotten memory. “It’s just that I was hoping you could help me with one more thing.”
“What is it, son?”
“I want to see my father.”
: :
CHAPTER 27 : :
Murdoch McAlister had the personal cell phone number of the president of the United States of America, but even he had his limitations. He placed calls to key contacts inside the
military, including Major General Robert T. Walker, the commander in chief of the Special Operations Command, but the best he could do was arrange for a hologram communication exchange.
“Are you sure about this?” Colt said as he watched the camera operator run through a test for the HCE.
“Yeah,” Oz said. “I need to talk to him one last time in case . . . well, in case something happens to me.”
“Nothing is going to happen,” Colt said, surprised by the anger that welled inside his chest. He wasn’t mad at Oz for saying it, because it was true. None of them was promised tomorrow, but it was easier when he wasn’t thinking about it.
Oz shrugged. “If you say so.”
“We’re all set.” The camera operator opened the door to the control room and took a seat behind a panel with more levers, buttons, and dials than an air traffic control facility.
“Look, are you sure you don’t want some privacy?” Colt said. He was feeling a bit squeamish—not because Santiago Romero had tried to kill him, but because he felt like a voyeur.
“You’re good,” Oz said. “Besides, I’m not sure I can do this alone.”
That struck Colt as strange. Oz was the perfect human specimen who was willing to go hand-to-hand with one of the Thule, but he was scared to talk to his own dad by himself?
“All right, here we go,” the camera operator said through a microphone.
The air shimmered, and suddenly Santiago Romero was there in the room, fully dimensional save for the fact that he was slightly transparent.
Lobo, as he was often called, was tall like Oz, but he had a bit of a paunch and he wasn’t as muscular. His shoulders were hunched and his dark skin looked almost sallow, but Colt could still see the arrogance in his eyes.
He was in a solitary confinement holding cell at Fort Leavenworth for an act of treason against all of humanity—all because he had been paranoid that the government was going to remove him from his role as director of CHAOS. He had conspired with a Thule assassin to kill the deputy director of the CIA’s National Clandestine Service, a federal judge, the director of the CHAOS Military Academy, and two United States senators.
“Technology is an amazing thing, isn’t it?” Lobo said. “I mean, here I am locked away, and you’re . . . Where are you?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Oz said, his eyes fixed on the floor instead of on his father.
“How have you been, son?”
“Don’t do that.” Oz shook his head. “Don’t act like everything is fine between us, because it isn’t.”
Lobo sighed. “I understand that you’re upset, but—”
“You don’t understand anything,” Oz said. “Forget what you put me through . . . that you humiliated me and that they kicked me out of the academy. What about Mom? What about all the people you had murdered? And their families? And for what? A stupid job.”
“I did it for you.”
“You what?” Oz stood there slack-jawed, his eyes brimming with tears. “You’re kidding, right? You did it for yourself.”
“Why are you here, son? To taunt me? Or did someone put you up to this?”
“No one put me up to anything! And I’m not your son. Not anymore.”
“You must be enjoying this,” Lobo said, turning to Colt.
“No, sir.”
“Leave him out of this.”
“I tried to,” Lobo said. “I told them that their plan was insane—that it was treasonous to send children against the Thule—but they wouldn’t listen to reason.” Lobo curled his lip, seemed to grow stronger as he spewed his anger. “And yet I’m the one who is locked up.”
A familiar rage whispered at the back of Colt’s skull, and for a moment he savored the thought of snapping Romero’s neck. But he pushed it away. “I forgive you,” Colt said, his voice barely a whisper.
Lobo stepped back as if struck. “What?”
Colt stood up and walked over to Oz. “Even though you tried to kill me, I forgive you.”
“How touching.”
“I hate what you did,” Oz said as he wiped his nose with the back of his sleeve. “I hate that you’re a murderer—that you destroyed so many families and that you actually think you did it for me. But that’s between you and God.” He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “And even though you don’t deserve it, I came here to tell you that I forgive you too.”
: :
CHAPTER 28 : :
I realize most of you wish you were at lunch, but can anyone tell me what this is?” Agent Rhane held up a metal object about the size of a Rubik’s Cube. He was standing in the middle of Hologram Room 3 with members of Phantom, Jackal, and Blizzard Squads, and he didn’t look happy.
“Come on now,” he said, his one good eye scanning the crowd. “McAlister? Romero?”
Agent O’Keefe shook his head as he watched them through the glass wall of the command center overhead. “Will one of you numbskulls answer the man?” he said through the loudspeaker. “You’re not only embarrassing yourselves, you’re embarrassing the entire academy.”
Jonas raised his hand sheepishly.
“Now how did I know you’d be the one to answer,” Rhane said. “All right, Cadet Hickman. Go ahead.”
“I believe it’s called a portal cube, sir.”
“You sure about that?” Rhane glared at Jonas, who turned his attention to a spot on the floor near his shoes.
“Yes, sir.”
“Good, because you’re right,” Rhane said, breaking into a rare smile. “This little doohickey is indeed called a portal cube, and it happens to be one of the most powerful bits of technology this world has ever seen. All you have to do is enter the coordinates of the place you’d like to end up and it’ll open a sixty-second portal.”
“Does that include the girls’ dorms?” Pierce asked, earning laughter from the guys and eye rolling from the girls.
“That’s about enough of you, Bowen,” O’Keefe said. “One more wisecrack and you’re on toilet detail.”
“Shutting up now, sir,” Pierce said with a melodramatic salute.
“I swear, if the Thule don’t get me first, that boy will be the death of me,” O’Keefe said, not realizing his microphone was still on.
“Each squad assigned to Project Betrayal will have one of these, so I want squad leaders thinking about who you would trust with your lives—because if you lose it, there’s a good chance you’ll be stuck on Gathmara forever. And let me tell you, it’s not exactly a vacation destination—especially for humans.”
“You’re in charge of ours,” Colt said, leaning over and whispering in Danielle’s ear.
“Why me?”
“Because I trust you with my life,” Colt said. “And because if I gave it to Oz, he’d either lose it or break it.”
“I heard that,” Oz said, nudging Colt with his elbow.
“I know.”