by Mary Weber
It wouldn’t stop. The freezing, violent shoving of flooring and wall beams bouncing through the rooms and around her, tearing this way and that into spaces ripped open in one giant hole.
Her chest was burning. Her mouth, her throat, her arms.
She gasped and more water came in to fill her lungs. She heaved. Oh, please, no, not this way. Every cell in her body was alive and on fire, in heightened awareness that there was no air no air no air. Only death.
Her chest convulsed again, her body shuddered, and any thoughts or fears or consciousness faded to nothing.
Until something hit her.
Hard. Her chest and lungs were shoved down and suctioned out, and the stabbing in her neck became electricity in her veins.
Sofi rolled onto her side and choked and gagged, then threw up an ocean on the wet floor, her body practically hacking up her insides onto the boots of a med worker.
“Miss, can you hear me? Nod if you can.”
She nodded. “Where’s Shilo?” she tried to say, but the fire in her throat wouldn’t let her.
“We’ll get you out of here.”
She was lifted onto a free-floating med cot, and a blanket and straps promptly zipped over her limbs, pinning her down.
With it came panic. Where are they taking me? Where is Shilo?
Sofi blinked at the fuzzy lights overhead. They were moving. Or she was moving. Being taken toward a med transport made for the injured and dying.
“My brother,” she mouthed.
“Don’t talk, miss. We’ve got you.” The man was breathing heavy beside her cot.
“Shilo.” She forced the whisper through the flames in her throat and rolled her head to the side to search through the haze and jumble of medics and wet bodies for her brother. She needed a glimpse of his face.
There were a lot of faces. Some alive. Some not so much.
Her eyes strained. Her body strained. Her elbows strained against those straps, her mind beating a refrain that something didn’t make sense. She had to get away from them. Get away from this place.
“Miss, you need to calm down. You’ll be fine.”
No, I won’t be fine! Something is wrong, fool. She jerked against the belts. “My brother, Shilo,” she gasped. But no one heard.
They slowed as more med workers filled the space, and she began to lose focus again. The mental fog crept in to cloud her vision and make her wonder if any of this was real. Her body relaxed.
Which was when she spotted him.
He was on a similar med cot, hair matted down in short, damp black curls. His face turned away. His chest moved beneath the blanket. He was breathing, but it wasn’t until his hand twitched that tears of relief attacked her eyes, blurring her vision.
Shilo is there. He’s okay.
How he had survived she had no idea.
“Miss, I need you to lie back.”
Sofi blinked and glanced up at the man. What? Then she was looking at Shilo again and the unusually tall medic adjusting the straps over his thin body, Shilo’s legs sticking out past the blanket where his suit had been cut away. She frowned.
Something felt wrong again. Who was with Shilo? He didn’t look like a normal medic.
In fact, he didn’t look normal . . .
The man shifted Shilo’s hoverbed and, in doing so, moved to face her. Sofi’s lungs deflated. She jerked and tried to scream, but an ache in her neck suddenly flared, and her med cot buzzer sounded.
A mask was shoved over her nose and mouth, and then the gas turned on.
8
MIGUEL
MIGUEL AND CLAUDIUS EXITED THE COLINADE WITH THE OTHER United World Corporation delegates despite attempts to stay and provide whatever assistance the two could offer. Even with security moving them “quickly,” though, it took an hour to get outside to the street—where things were just as chaotic with the blue low-floating med vehicles and high-flying enforcer hovercrafts swarming beside old civilian cars and crowds who’d come to snap vids.
“What’d you see?” voices yelled. “Is it true a bomb took out the arena?” “Were any of the Delonese hurt?”
The lights and cameras wielded by glossy-lipped reporters and titanium assistant droids lit up the late-afternoon shade, all hungry for firsthand reactions from the world’s most influential. They were like piranhas attacking beneath the Manhattan sky-rises and the security drones buzzing over the city.
Miguel pursed his mouth, aware that any other time he would’ve played to the attention, enjoyed it even and the power it yielded.
Just . . .
Not today.
Clenching his jaw, he braced against the ache that had erupted the moment the bomb went off in front of Sofi’s window, taking her out along with her brother and the others. Then he swallowed and looked away. Focus, Miguel. Just stay alert. Stay aware.
Pasting on a broad grin of white teeth against his dark skin for their pics, he waved adiós to Claudius and beckoned his men as a flash went off in his face, then another and another. Let his staff deal with the frenzy. In a few minutes the gossip mags would have an entire audience pouring outside who’d be thrilled to give their stories.
He took a visual sweep of the Corp heads and delegates being tucked into their custom hovercars and searched for signs they knew more than they should. They always did, and his talent at finding out served to keep the elite indebted or in check and him in the positions he needed.
Unfortunately, their features showed nothing more than fear or fascination as his earcom blipped. “Sir, your car’s here.”
Miguel flattened his lips and tapped it. “Actually, I think I’m going to walk.”
Clearing his expression, he turned from the crowds and faces of the heat-stricken workers and, patting the note in his pocket, ducked for a side street just as a row of picketers flashed their bright-yellow signs with slashed-out alien heads. “Delonese mean death!” “They’re going to destroy us!” “Get rid of the aliens now!” they shouted.
Until the expected posse of peacekeepers surrounded them. He shook his head. Didn’t matter how many times they were arrested or silenced over the past eleven years, new ones always popped up wherever the Delonese did.
He took off toward his house—jogging quickly, then harder, pounding the ground beneath his feet—as if doing so could ease the horror over what had just been done. Over losing her. He needed to watch the news—sift through the faces and physical tells. He needed answers as to what had happened. His chest burned. He could feel the cold pressure against his neck, like a clock’s hands slipping into place, moved by loss and threat before the toll of revelation sounded.
“Make sure the blame sits on Corp 24.”
A wadded-up piece of trash skittered down the shadowed street as a group of twentysomethings strode toward him, loudly chattering about the scene they were headed to, until one glanced over and saw Miguel. The man paused, mouth open, then nudged his friends. “You guys. Miguel.”
“Get a selfie,” his friend said in hushed excitement.
“Buenas noches.” Miguel nodded and kept jogging as the sound of their cameras clicking followed him—forcing his thoughts away from Sofi and onto the fact that this whole thing would make a lot more sense if Corp 24 hadn’t already sealed their own guilt.
Which clearly meant it hadn’t been Corp 24.
His mind flashed to the Delonese. The ones who’d left through their private exit moments after the explosion. What was their part in this? Or anyone’s, for that matter—the anarchists, terrorists, or Corp leaders even, let alone every other official he could imagine hatching such a plan. He sped through suggestions of the disenfranchised and extremists he knew while enforcer hovercrafts whizzed by far overhead.
The question wasn’t just who could’ve done it or who’d want to.
But why?
The scent of lilacs welcomed him to his street where the trees effectively covered the sterile smell Manhattan had become known for. The housing rows shimmered in the aftern
oon light—silver doors, glossy windows, giant brick steps covering weapon detectors and ID sensors and cameras at every single angle.
For the short time between World War III and the Fourth War, most people had understood such measures. Some even welcomed the idea of being “living” cameras and had taken to wearing virtual contacts enabling interweb access at the blink of an eye. Until the Fourth War hit the horizon and realization dawned of how easily such devices were hacked—and overnight they became a threat rather than protection. Now such things were eyed with suspicion by both the average Earth citizen and the Corporations who utilized them.
Miguel’s street had exactly 257 of those kinds of cameras.
One of his security details was swarming the place, and the second he got within view, their hands went to their earcoms, reporting him safe. When he reached his gate, they ushered him up the steps and watched the ID sensor silently scan him to ensure Miguel was, in fact, himself.
Then they followed him in.
He left the team on the first floor and took the elevator to the sixth. And promptly flicked the tele on before rolling up his sleeves and clicking a security button beneath the oversize cherrywood desk. It would run interference with vids, bugs, or other devices because he despised being watched. And yes, he knew the irony in that.
Retrieving the note from his pocket, he spread it out on the table to study the font, the letters, the smell. He studied how it had been folded and the pictures. What angle they’d been taken from. What dates. And from how far away.
He scowled.
At least the individual had been merciful and used paper rather than the web. Although such care only meant they were more serious.
It meant they knew he’d comply.
“Today’s attacks seemed to target only a few of the players—”
Miguel looked up. The news tele was flashing pics of the gamers and techs. They showed the Corp 24 murderer, then one of the gamers—Tor—he thought, then Shilo . . .
“Investigations are under way, but it’s believed whoever did this had motives other than simply disrupting the Games.”
His shoulders tightened, and he turned to the windows to gaze out at the Colinade seven blocks away where the smoke was dispersing.
A second later he pressed his earcom. “Call Vicero.”
9
SOFI
SOFI SHIFTED IN HER SLEEP AS HER MIND FLICKERED THROUGH the blackness before locking down inside a dream of her brother.
“Sofi?”
“Shh, fool,” a boy mumbled.
Shilo frowned and tried to retort but couldn’t concentrate due to the icy rod stabbing his side in the dim. He shifted against the cargo wall that was freezing and vibrating with the low thrum of a huge engine. It felt like they were flying. And there was the cold . . . His teeth chattered as the condensation collecting on his skin stung him with the memory of what happened.
The noise.
The medic traders. They’d taken him.
His spine shivered. Taken him where?
Shilo peered through the pitch black and visualized the huddle of bodies crowded around. “Hey,” he whispered at the boy who’d shushed him. “Where we at?”
“Told you to hush, didn’t I? You wanna get us killed? Besides, you already asked earlier and I still don’t know anything.”
Earlier?
Shilo sucked in his aching tummy and tried to listen to those engines. To whatever was going on beyond the cargo space. After a minute he gave up—maybe he didn’t want to know where they were going.
Or what would happen once they got there.
Sofi drifted and fought through the dark. Struggling to surface from the nightmare that had settled in. Something about Shilo, cold in a cargo hold and wondering where he was being taken.
The images were like a fog now, curling and dancing, reaching from the recesses to send wispy tendrils down to her lungs. She gasped and tried to open her eyes. A dream.
It’s just another nightmare, Sofi.
She slid her hand to her throat. Her necklace was still there, knotted tight, its owl loops and feathers bringing the comfort it always did from Shilo. Catching the remnants of her nighttime fears.
She frowned.
Shilo. She’d heard him in her dream—heard his voice and fragility. She’d seen what he’d seen and felt what he’d felt—the cold and metal and condensation—so distinct it was real.
It was beyond real.
Moving her cheek against a pillow, Sofi noticed the voices in the hall. They’d started up a few minutes ago—or maybe forever—she couldn’t remember. Talking. Arguing. One was her mother’s corporate vice president, Ms. Gaines, aka a company shark.
What was she doing here? Sofi waited as the woman’s tone grew clear enough to form words that formed sentences that Sofi’s thoughts could latch onto.
“I don’t care. Ms. Snow’s health is not the concern, our company is. Wake her and question her.”
“I’m merely suggesting a bit of time might render her more useful. The girl impossibly survived and her brother is . . .”
Sofi’s chest caught and her eyes flew open to the overhead halogen lights blasting down on her. They were in Corp 30’s headquarters—in the med sector with its distinct chemical smell. She waited for the man in the hall to finish, but he left his statement hanging in a phantom answer. Finish the sentence, dude. My brother is what?
Silence.
She glanced at the slightly ajar door where a sliver of corridor was showing, but the only thing visible was the back of Ms. Gaines’s silver head. Breathe, Sofi. Think. She’d seen Shilo at the Colinade. He’d been injured but alive. He’d even moved—and with technology nowadays, the only way a person of their status usually stayed dead was if they were found that way. So why was the man hesitant to wake her? What was it that would upset her?
The Delonese medic’s face flashed through her mind.
The Delonese.
Her stomach twisted. What if?
“We’ve not found him yet,” the man’s voice murmured. “We’re still looking.”
Oh gad, was Shilo missing? Had he been taken by that Delonese medic? What if it was something like in her dream just now?
She needed a handscreen to search for him. Her gaze narrowed as she peered around the room at the windowless paisley-papered walls, door, and a med machine a few feet away with an IV tube running to her neck. And not a computer or tele in sight.
“What of the others?” Ms. Gaines’s voice emerged again.
“Ms. Snow’s team, along with gamers 2, 24, and 10 and a couple of their techs—all dead.”
Sofi blinked and felt her skin ice over. Heller? Luca? The Ns?
“And our Corp team’s bodies? The gear and equipment?”
“Destroyed. All of it.”
“But what of Shilo’s items—his suit and . . . tech he’d been using?”
The male voice hesitated. “They were with Shilo.”
“All the more reason to begin questioning Sofi immediately,” Ms. Gaines said. “I want to know everything she knows, saw, and anyone she could’ve told.”
“And the girl’s mother?”
“CEO Inola is not to be bothered. You report directly to me, or I will see to it you are removed for good. And, Eli? The moment I say you’re finished with that girl, you delete every trace. Is that clear? Every. Trace.”
“If her mother asks?”
“If her mother asks, her daughter is already dead.”
Sofi choked. What?
The door started to open. She clamped her eyes shut. She had to get out of here. She had to save herself and then go find her brother.
Footsteps.
The faint scent of musky hair cream signaled a man was walking toward the bed. He detached the IV from her neck, then yanked the sheet off her body before walking out.
“Get the sterile room ready,” he said to someone in the hall. “Then prep her.”
10
MIGUEL
&nb
sp; “I NEED NAMES, VIC.” MIGUEL TAPPED THE BLACKMAIL NOTE while he spoke to the female face looming through his handscreen. “Who’s alive, who’s dead, and who knew about the bomb? Also, I need all the info on the Corp 24 kid—his past and who had access to him in the last year. Plus, the bomb’s design and who could’ve made it.”
The girl’s face laughed. “Whoa, man, you know I always get your stuff, but it’s gonna take time.”
Miguel snorted. “Seriously? I could ask five others for the same stats and have it by seven tonight.”
The auburn-haired, blue-eyed image lifted her hands as if hurt. “Yeah, but would they be as charming as me? No. Besides, you know I’m good for it.”
Miguel stared at her. She was jittery today. Probably still annoyed at the dude who’d tried to hack her last week. But she was right—she was more than good for it. She was the best. A virtual wealth of resources. “Okay, just see what you can get me. I’ll pay double.”
“Double? Wow. In that case, give me an hour.”
Miguel waved as if to say, “Yeah, fine.” “Oh, and, Vic? I’m going to need all the pertinent vids that were taken in the arena today.”
“Audience vids? Easy-peasy. Want me to shoot them to the regular box?”
“That’d be great, actually. And, Vic? Gracias. I owe you.”
“Yeah, you do.” She pretended to take a swig of coffee. “Sayonara.”
Miguel clicked off the com and ran his hands over his face. Rubbing the strain from his eyes and skin. What a freaking mess.
The door chimed. “Ambassador Claudius, sir,” a robo-voice said.
“Let him up.” Miguel left the note on the table and turned to face the room’s large tele just as his handscreen buzzed again with a text encoded from the UWC.
He swiped his thumbprint and waited for the cipher to unravel.
United World Corp meeting 9pm. Level four. Your attendance mandatory.
A World Corp meeting tonight? He raised a brow and scrolled over to source the address.
The fact it was happening was a given. They needed to deal with the situation as a united group, or at least appear to do so. That they were calling for it this evening rather than tomorrow, though—before everything was accounted for and safety measures taken—was more than a little odd. People were still in reaction, especially those most affected.