by T. M. Catron
“I wanted him to come with us,” she ended. “It’s my fault Lincoln got separated from us. When the invaders attacked the camp, we ran to the tunnel and found our supplies, but on the way down we panicked and went the wrong way. When the attack was over, we had lost our bearings. Then the invaders came.” Alvarez trailed off for a minute. At first, Mina thought she was crying, and thought she had every right to cry—the Glyphs were terrifying—but Alvarez’s face instead held a kind of wonder in it. “Have you seen them, Mina?” she asked.
“The Glyphs? Yes, more times than I would wish.”
“They're beautiful.” Alvarez’s voice had changed to a dreamy whisper.
“And dangerous,” Mina added, confused. She’d never met anyone who’d seen the Glyphs and said they were beautiful. Powerful, sure. Scary, absolutely. But not beautiful. Although every time Mina had seen them, she hadn't been in a position to stop and observe. She had always feared for her life.
“Alvarez is a little bit in awe of them,” Nelson said. “We all were at first, but we couldn't do anything except hide and watch them go by. We waited a long time, until we were sure they were gone. Then we left. We didn't make contact with anyone else until we arrived here.”
“That’s not exactly true,” said Carter as he popped another pain pill. Mina had lost track of his dosage. Perhaps he had, too. “We saw a man and woman walking around after the Glyphs, but they were too far away for us to warn without blowing our own cover. And anyway, we didn’t recognize them. They weren’t wearing Army uniforms.”
“What about Lincoln? Didn’t you have a place to meet if you got separated?”
Carter nodded and shifted, trying to reach his water. Alvarez helped him. “We did, but by the time we found it more than a day late, he wasn’t there. We waited a bit, and then Nelson saw him.”
“From a distance,” said Nelson, “with Captain Baker, and she had a gun pointed at him. They were yelling at each other.”
“What?” asked Mina. “Why didn’t you help him?”
“We were going to,” answered Carter. “And that’s when I fell.”
“We lost track of them after that. Carter went into shock—we thought we were going to lose him.”
“They should have left me.”
Alvarez sighed. “Lincoln was alive. Carter needed help. After that first night, when Carter came through, we helped him up and got out of there. I still don’t know how we dragged him out, but once he realized we wouldn’t leave him, he stopped arguing and tried to walk. We didn’t want Baker following us, so we went over rocky ground as much as possible. When we found the parkway, we followed it until we found this place.”
“So you made it harder for Lincoln to follow you, too.” Mina stood, suddenly cold. “What was so awful about Baker that you couldn’t ask her for help?”
“Hey you weren’t there!” Nelson said. He stood too. “We didn’t know why they wanted us, but it was important enough to keep us against our will. What were we going to do?”
“Anything!” Mina put her hands in the air, frustrated at their lack of effort. “Draw her off! Jump her! Trick her!” Kill her. Mina caught the thought before it left her lips. No. That was Doyle’s way, not hers.
Nelson paused. “You're a lot like him.”
Startled, Mina asked, “Who?” She was not Doyle.
“Your brother—aren’t we talking about him? You make it sound so easy, but we had a choice to make. He wouldn’t have wanted us to give ourselves up. If Baker had been safe, Lincoln would've called out for us all over the mountain, but he didn’t. Alvarez and I are no match for Baker in a fair fight, and the fight wouldn’t have been fair. She’s heavily armed. We had to make a choice, Mina.”
Mina looked at Alvarez, who nodded.
Carter cleared his throat. “How’d you get here all the way from Atlanta?”
“I never made it to Atlanta. My plane landed in Charlotte just before the attacks.” Mina recounted her own story, glossing over any events that included Doyle. She made it seem unremarkable to be here, hoping her bland telling would satisfy their curiosity. If the others doubted any part of it, they didn’t ask.
Later, Mina helped Alvarez bring creek water up the mountain. The lodgers were allowing the team to stay, but bitter feelings ran high. Mina caught dirty looks as she brought the water across the road. By the end of the day, word had spread, probably through Helen, that the head of the team had been Mina's brother. Despite the lodgers’ feelings, Mina re-pitched her tent near their fire and insisted Carter use it.
“Thanks for the teddy bear, Mina. It’s very comforting.” He smiled weakly. That evening, his condition worsened. He didn't speak and spent most of this time sleeping. When they woke him to eat, he vomited everything they gave him. Alvarez and Nelson said little, their faces deeply lined with worry. Mina hated sitting around waiting, feeling helpless.
Lincoln was out there somewhere, probably close. She could go look for him. The more she thought about it, the more she wanted to go. Why not? She knew how to take care of herself. She’d rather get lost in the woods than sit here hoping Lincoln would find her. Doyle wasn’t coming back, she decided, but if she ran into him, she could use the opportunity to tell him exactly what she thought of him.
Her bitter feelings toward his disappearance magnified tenfold whenever she thought how close she had been to reuniting with Lincoln. Going to West Virginia had always been Doyle’s idea, but somehow he was responsible for the missed opportunity. A few hours earlier, and they could have found her brother. A few hours earlier, and she would not have been separated from Doyle. A few hours earlier, and . . . what? Mina was at a loss to describe her frustration.
At first, she didn’t tell anyone what she was planning, but she silently began gathering her gear the next morning along with any food she could find. The food she took to Carter, Nelson, and Alvarez, and told them to keep the first aid kit. Solomon sat with them.
“Going to look for your brother?” he guessed.
“I can’t sit here and do nothing. If he gets here, tell him to stay put. I’ll check in occasionally.”
Evan bounded over then, looking uncharacteristically happy. “Gramps, Iverson gave me a knife he won playing poker!” He held up a switchblade for Solomon to see.
Solomon took it and examined it, flicking it out and then back in. “Give it back. Why would he give it to you?”
“Why wouldn’t he?” asked Evan. “Maybe he likes me.”
Solomon stood and grabbed Evan by his shirt. “I told you I don’t like him. The only reason the others want him here is because he has guns and can hunt.”
Evan shook off his grandfather, uninjured but bruised all the same. “Mina’s here for the same reason,” he countered.
“Mina’s different.”
Mina's cheeks burned. If she hadn’t wanted to say goodbye, she would have excused herself. The others didn’t look comfortable, either.
Evan’s face turned sour again. “You don’t want me to have nothing!”
“You can have what you work for and nothing else!” Solomon raised his voice for the first time. “Now take it back, and I don’t want you talking to Iverson anymore, understand?”
Evan stood in front of Solomon with his fists balled. “You gamble for stuff all the time. What’s the difference?”
“You going to hit me, son?”
“I’m not your son!” Evan spat. He stormed off before Solomon could respond.
Solomon’s lined face looked old and defeated. “Shouldn’t have grabbed him,” he said. When no one answered, he waved goodbye and turned to leave, then turned back to Mina. “Be careful out there.”
Mina nodded. “Why don’t you like Iverson?”
Solomon sighed. “Just a feeling about him. He asked about you, by the way. Forgot to tell you.”
“He told me.”
Solomon frowned. “Already, huh? Well, for what it’s worth, I don’t like him.”
Mina didn’t know whether to be
annoyed or flattered that Solomon was treating her like a daughter. She smiled at him. “It’s worth something. Thanks.”
Solomon nodded and left.
“Mina,” said Alvarez. Mina turned to her. “About Baker. We don’t know why she’s holding Lincoln. She’s always been a little overzealous. And I think she knows more than she lets on. It always bothered me that she didn’t go after Halston when he returned.”
“So be careful,” added Nelson.
“Thanks,” Mina said.
Halston was a rogue hybrid. Was Baker one as well? Mina swallowed the lump forming in her throat, wishing for answers to all her questions. She crossed the road and eased below the guardrail. What could Baker possibly want with Lincoln? What would any hybrid want with a human?
Day 100
“THAT’S THE LAST ONE,” CALLA said. She and Doyle stood in the cockpit of the Nomad, watching a Condarri attack pod fly into the aether surrounding the Factory. Doyle had positioned the Nomad with both the Earth and the shrouded Factory in view. The aether clouded the city-sized hulk inside it. After a few minutes, the Condarri ship dropped off the last of its hybrid cargo and flew back to Earth. The hybrids’ destruction was of little consequence to Condar. As suspected, all hybrids from Asia, Europe, South America, Africa, and Australia were accounted for inside the Factory—nearly one million loyal followers. Only a handful from North America had deserted.
“Now will you tell me the plan?” Calla was eager to fulfill this part of the mission, but Doyle had enjoyed keeping her in the dark over the last three days. He guided the Nomad toward the Factory, sinking into the aether.
“Confirm dismantling of nuclear facilities. We can’t have any blunders.”
“I already did that.”
“Confirm again.”
Calla bit back a sigh and checked again. “Confirmed. Nuclear sites’ cyber security terminated, key equipment destroyed. All hybrids from those areas have evacuated and are accounted for,” she said irritably. “We could program the core generators to implode within the aether and detonate remotely. What are we doing inside the Factory?”
Doyle ignored Calla and docked in the hangar. They remained in the cockpit, watching thousands of hybrids ascend into the column of dark aether. Others milled around, finding familiar faces, or exited the hangar for the living quarters on this level. More than a few curious faces looked up at the Nomad even though they couldn't see inside it.
Doyle nodded to the dark hangar walls covered in silent adarria. “Would you destroy them too?” he asked.
Calla frowned. Why did the traitor care what happened to the Condarri symbols? Still, she chided herself for not thinking of it first. “What do you propose?”
“Set the aether free.”
Calla laughed before she could stop herself. “That’s never been done. Only the Condarri could authorize that decision.”
“Do you think they’ll be pleased when we destroy the adarria? It’s the only way.”
“Setting the aether free was not part of the mission!”
“It’ll remain on the Factory until we get control again later.”
“Who can? You? You are not capable of wielding the aether in that manner.”
“Perhaps not, but this is the best way.”
Calla doubted Doyle’s logic, but she saw no alternative, except, “We could command the hybrids to destroy themselves.”
Doyle turned to look at Calla. His piercing eyes examined her a moment before he said, “It won’t work.”
Calla glared back but questioned his meaning. Did he refer to the hybrids or her new mission? Did he suspect? “They’re all loyal here.”
“They are now, but do you really believe if you gave that command, every one of them would die? We would have to go in personally to finish off the ones who disobeyed. How many would it take to overrun the two of us, do you think? The Condarri suspect all hybrids now. If it were that easy, Condar would have already ordered it done, and we wouldn’t be standing here.”
Calla nodded curtly and pulled up a Factory schematic inside the cockpit. “The main control for the aether is on Level 3, in the very heart of the ship. We’ll have to access the core manually. We can’t program the order through the adarria. Will the adarria stop us?”
Doyle shook his head. “I don’t think so.” He manipulated the hologram with his hand, zooming in on the room. “Have you ever been to the core?”
“No. You?”
“No. And I have never heard of anyone who has.”
Calla watched the schematic change. A large blank space in the map represented the core of the ship. It gave no indication of what they would find there. “Once we override the protocols, we can’t use the vortex to get back.”
“We can. The adarria have some control. They'll keep it at bay long enough to get back to the Nomad. Once the aether is free, we’ll have minutes before it fills the Factory ship.”
Calla understood—if she fell behind, she'd be left behind. “And if the adarria don't hold it?”
“It will hold.” Doyle gave Calla the same hard look as before. “Not afraid to die, are you?”
“In case you’ve forgotten, we have another mission to fulfill after this.”
“And you want to be the one who brings the rogues to justice.”
“I have not been secret about my ambition.”
“No, Calla, you have not.” Doyle dismissed the hologram and left the cockpit. Calla followed, and ten minutes later they had pushed their way to the front of the line and were submerged inside the spinning vortex. On their way through the crowd at Level 3, hybrids clapped Doyle on the back, and once they were recognized, they had little trouble getting where they wanted to go. No one spoke to Calla, yet most still regarded her with distant respect, which was all she cared about.
Level 3 housed training facilities. No one worried about training now, however. Instead, a large crowd of hybrids gathered at the arena, waiting to be marked for combat. The arena was not like the Great Hall on Condar, but merely a large training area with stone steps descending around a center floor.
A game was already in progress, and the crowd looking down on the court shouted and called out to the two in the center. Cheers went up as one fell, and the victor hollered above the noise of the crowd, calling for the next challenger. Calla and Doyle expected to walk by, but they were recognized almost immediately.
“Dar Ceylin!” A female hybrid shouted to him over the line of contenders. “Sir, we reserved a spot for you in the final round! You fight the overall victor!” She halted when she saw Calla and nudged the hybrids around her. Her eyes narrowed. “. . . or would the great and mighty Calla prefer to take your place?”
The other hybrid smiled spitefully, prompting Calla to march over and pistol-whip the disrespect off her leering face. Blood sprayed from the hybrid’s nose, and before she could retaliate, she lay on the floor with Calla’s boot on her neck. The nearby crowd hushed. Calla glared, daring them to challenge her authority. Doyle stood back and watched the scene with a look of mixed amusement on his face, his desire to continue the mission conflicting with his enjoyment at seeing Calla taunted.
Someone to the right whispered, “It is Dar Ceylin. I told you.” The words repeated and rippled through the stands, the incident having drawn more attention than Calla anticipated. Soon ten thousand eyes in the arena fixed on Doyle and Calla, and then a roar of sound shuffled and prodded them down the stairs to the floor amidst cheering and clapping.
Calla caught words like “victory” and “success” amid the shouting. The hybrids greeted Doyle like a general returning after battle. Eager faces beamed when he spoke to them or shook a hand. Calla followed behind, and the crowd parted to let her through as well.
When they reached the floor, the fighters left the ring. Doyle held up his hand for silence, prompting a new round of cheering. Calla stood next to Doyle so she could observe him. He waited with a look of patient satisfaction on his face.
He enjoys
this too much, Calla thought. That’s why the Condarri want him dead, not because of any specific treachery. Yet Calla heard her own name shouted among the crowd, if not as enthusiastically. I have too much authority as well. Condar thinks I’m dangerous. The slaves were too irreverent, too willing to follow someone other than the Condarri. Doyle was correct. They would all turn rogue if given the right reasons.
Doyle held up a hand one more time, and this time the arena quieted.
An uneasy murmuring swept through the crowd. Most of the hybrids, coming out of isolation, had not heard the rumors surrounding the rogues. Doyle nodded.
The arena erupted in applause and stomping so thunderous the adarria on the walls stirred. Flashes of light streaked across the arena like strobe lights, mingling with the noise like a primal dance. Doyle motioned for Calla to follow, and they exited the arena through a small door on the floor, avoiding the stands where they would only be caught up in the celebration. The roar diminished inside the narrow corridor, but they could still hear ten thousand hybrids chanting Dar Ceylin’s name. The Factory had never heard so much clamor.