by Summer Lane
Run faster, run faster, run faster.
My muscles are nearly spent. The only thing keeping me on my feet is the adrenaline of the chase, the desire to escape, to get away. Something dark streaks out of the jungle terrain to my left, and I duck to avoid it. I catch only the tip of it, but it’s enough to knock me down. I crash into the dirt and smack my face against the muddy earth. I roll onto my back, dizzy, my cheek throbbing. I intend to spring back up, but a scout looms over me, pressing his knee into my chest.
No, no, no, no, no …
Wild, animal panic rises inside me. I cannot die like this. I still have so much left in me to give. So much!
Around me, the scouts emerge from the woods, like shadows materializing from the darkness itself. There are too many—I count ten at least.
How are they here? How did they find us? Hawaii was supposed to be isolated …
These thoughts buzz through my brain as the scout above me presses something cool against the temple of my forehead. He does it so quickly that I don’t even see it coming. An electric jolt jars my skull and grinds my teeth together.
I gasp, pain gripping my head, and I scream, still bucking and fighting against the hands that hold me flat against the ground. Someone shoves a heavy bag over my head and I am blind, suffocating and panicked. My hands are bound. I’m dragged forward, and the pulsing electric jolt in my brain won’t stop.
***
An eternity passes. I’m dragged through the forest, fighting part of the way. They continue to shock me with the foreign electric weapon, and it turns my muscles weak. I limp along, and then I’m finally hauled forcibly. I am shoved onto something cold and slick—a bench? I hear the blades of a helicopter, feel the rumble of an aircraft, experience the sensation of flying.
They are taking me off the island. Where are the others?
The panic is almost overwhelming. Blind to the world and unable to move, I can only imagine the worst: my comrades, shot and dead—and me, no doubt being led to my death.
Deprived of fresh air and my vision, I have no idea how much time passes. I find myself fading away, focusing my mind on an empty space, trying to keep my body calm.
I am moved about, jostled. I feel the cold breeze of ocean air, hear the clank of boots against metal ladders, and then I am roughly shoved into a chair. The bag is ripped from my head. Sweat runs down my face, and I blink through aching eyes at the Omega scouts who are laughing at me, insulting me in a language that I do not understand.
I am dehydrated. I slowly blink, raising my head. My brain feels swollen, throbbing. I look around. My left wrist is chained to the metal armrest of the chair in which I have been placed.
Again, the panic.
The fear snaps in me and renders me fully alert, and I look around. I am inside a large room, mostly empty. The walls are gray and plain. Outside, I hear noises, voices.
I am alone.
Where is everyone else? I think again, horrified. Are they alive?
How could this happen? Admiral Boyd should have sent us some kind of warning if he knew Omega was coming. But of course, the obvious reason that he would not send a warning is all too simple: he didn’t know.
I sit there, straining against the chain for a moment, realizing that it’s futile. My weapons are gone. I’m just a girl in a tank top, filthy, covered in dried mud and purple bruises. I lean my head back and tell myself to wait it out.
If the scouts want me dead, they would have killed me.
They would have killed me a long time ago.
Yet, I’m still alive, and there must be a reason for that, and I have to believe that the rest of my unit is still alive, too.
Hours pass.
My throat is parched, my stomach growls with hunger. I lick my lips, trying to work up enough saliva to lubricate my throat. I try again to slip out of the cuff, but it is too tight. I curse and slam my boot against the floor, frustrated.
The utter silence of this room—the not knowing where I am or what is happening fuels my anger. I want out.
As if to answer my mental plea, the door at the far end of the room opens with a bang. I sit up straight, clenching my jaw. A detachment of Omega guards walks inside. Five of them. They stand very still as the last man walks through the door, wearing a strange blue uniform that I have never seen before. A line of black buttons runs down the center of the jacket, and the collar is lined with gold thread.
“Hello, Cassidy,” he says gravely. “We meet again.”
I swallow a lump in my throat.
“Harry,” I reply.
I shouldn’t be surprised. Somehow, Harry Lydell is involved with every Omega move against us. I want to understand why—and how. But I say nothing, letting the shock and surprise slip from my face, arranging my features into stone.
Harry looks different than the last time I saw him—in a cell in San Francisco. His hair is shorter, clean. Yet he looks strangely pale, almost sick.
“You’re not surprised to see me?” he asks.
“Can’t say that I am,” I answer.
“Sorry about the brain freeze,” he continues, tapping his temple. “But you were being unruly.”
I wince, remembering the jolting pain that raced through my skull when they brought me down.
“What was it?” I ask.
“Just a little buzz,” Harry replies, smiling faintly. “A little technology magic, courtesy of Omega.”
Of course.
He walks closer, surveying me with a keen eye.
“You look stressed,” he surmises.
“Oh, no kidding,” I snap. “What do you want, Harry? What do they want?”
“We want to talk,” he replies. “That’s all.”
He raises his hands, and the guards gather around me. All of them. Like they’re afraid that I’m going to take them down, unarmed and handcuffed.
They cuff my wrists together and I get to my feet. We follow Harry outside into a long hallway. The lights are bright here. Again I wonder where we are.
“Where are we?” I ask Harry.
He doesn’t answer.
I glare at the back his head, watching his slender body move through the halls. He holds himself with such arrogance. I wish I could break his nose.
We walk for a long time, coming at last to a double door that is heavily guarded by Omega men. I shudder, knowing that I am in the center of an Omega hive.
Chris, where are you?
Where is everyone?
The guards open the door for Harry. He whisks inside, and I’m practically dragged in behind him. We move into a long, dimly lit room with a large window. I immediately make two assessments: first, that it’s early morning. The sky outside is barely glowing with sunlight. And second, we are on a ship. The Pacific Ocean looms beneath us, nothing but open water for miles.
The room has a long table made of dark wood. There is a slim screen attached to the wall, blue and white, outlining different areas of the world. Some are highlighted in red—like the United States, Canada, and Mexico—while others are filled in with solid black. Some of the blackened countries are France, Brazil, China, India, and Syria.
Black for conquered, red for rebellions,I realize.
There are several chairs near the window. In the first one, I see Chris. He is sitting extremely still, expressionless and tense. When he sees me, he exhales, nods slightly, then looks away. Beside him is Uriah, but I see no one else.
I pray that they didn’t find the rest of our unit. That they didn’t find Ohana Base. That they didn’t find the nukes.
That would be the end of this war—and the end of the world.
I follow Uriah and Chris’s line of sight to the figure standing in the corner looking out the window.
“Veronica Klaus,” I say, unimpressed. “Still making life miserable for everyone, I see.”
She is unchanged. Tall, thin, her black hair piled in a massive coif on her head. She turns to face me. She wears a dark red pantsuit, startlingly colorful in the
bland grayness of the room.
“Oh, Commander Hart,” she says, flashing a smile. “Your sarcasm and total lack of respect for someone who holds your life in their hands are amusing, as always.”
She lowers herself into an empty chair, flicking her fingers.
Harry dismisses most of the guards, then pushes me forward.
I jerk away from him and sit next to Chris.
“Let me see,” Veronica purrs. “The last time I saw you, Cassidy, you and I had just had a very fruitful meeting. And how do you repay me? By killing one of my best pilots, stealing a helicopter, and turning one of my own men against me.”
She lifts her icy gaze to mine, and I see the scar on her eye.
Jack Proper,I think. After San Francisco, when he helped me escape, he must have gone back to the island and tried to kill Veronica …
Obviously, he failed. And now I’m assuming Jack is dead.
“Did Harry tell you?” Veronica asks, smiling again.
I hate it when she smiles.
“I did not, Madame Chancellor,” Harry replies.
His voice is sickly sweet, overly affectionate.
Gross.
“You’re sitting in Omega’s flagship,” she goes on, leaning her head against the chair. “Welcome aboard.”
“Flagship,” I repeat. “For your fleet?”
“The biggest fleet we have in the Pacific,” Veronica replies flatly. “I call it the Athena Fleet.You remember Athena, surely. The Greek goddess of war and wisdom.”
“Whatever,” I say.
Chris gives me a look. He is warning me to watch my tongue, to shut up.
“May I ask what you were doing in Hawaii?” Veronica says.
No one answers. Uriah’s fists tighten on the armrests of the chair.
“I sense that you’re keeping secrets from me.” Veronica shrugs. “How terribly rude. Harry, were they always this rude when you knew them?”
Harry nods, silent.
“Terrible.” Veronica tsks. “Tell you what, darlings. I have eyes in the sky, everywhere. Hawaii is just an island, like any other island in the world. We don’t care about taking Hawaii. It’s nothing but another feather in our cap. And, I would imagine, you really don’t care about Hawaii, either. It offers nothing for the militias—no resources of any kind. Even the militia there is weak.” She leans forward. “I’ve been watching you. You’ve been looking for something—something hidden on the island. What is it?”
I lick my lips, terrified and sickened at the thought that this entire time Veronica has been watching us. How? Via satellite feed?
I remember what Hanale said about the Ku using drones to spy on them sometimes.
What if it wasn’t the Ku who was spying on them? What if it was Omega?
How could we be so naïve?
“We were looking for more reinforcements,” I lie.
“I’m not an idiot,” Veronica says. “You were not looking for reinforcements. You were sent to the island by Admiral Boyd, the commanding officer of the naval fleet that is currently waiting on the east side of the Hawaiian Islands. Why did he send you there?”
Again, we remain silent.
Again, I am horrified that Veronica knows this much.
“Here is the reality of the situation,” Veronica tells us. “You can either tell me what it is you were looking for or you can wait and let my men find it. Whatever it is you’re hiding there—we will find it. And we will take it from you.”
Her words are chilling.
“We’re not hiding anything,” Chris responds simply.
“Such convincing liars,” Veronica chirps.
She stands up again, walking to the table. There is a teapot there, and she pours hot water into a cup, carefully mixing her tea. Harry stays there, motionless, looking almost as subjugated as we are.
Finally, Veronica returns to the window, standing and sipping her tea.
“You do realize that I hold your lives in the palm of my hands, yes?” she asks.
Harry steps forward.
“Perhaps, Madame Chancellor,” he says, “you should make the offer?”
Veronica narrows her eyes.
“Silence,” she hisses. “You have no authority here.”
Embarrassed, he snaps his mouth shut.
“No doubt you heard about the tragedy of San Diego?” Veronica probes, shifting her focus to us again. “So sad. Were you there? I was hoping you’d die like the rest of them.”
“You killed hundreds of innocent people,” I grit.
“Innocent? Hardly. Parasitic insects. Useless bodies standing in the way of progress.” She sighs. “Besides, after your marvelous little stunt with the biochemical weapons on my troops stationed on the coast of California … well, you had to learn your lesson somehow. All is fair in love and war, as they say.”
“You’re a coward,” I say.
“I’m a visionary, darling,” Veronica replies. “I can see the future. You cannot, and it will cost you your life. All of you.”
She sits. She pulls a slim remote from her pocket, and a dark shade moves over the window, sealing us into a dark room. The screen on the wall lights up, illuminating the map that I noticed earlier.
“We are very close to achieving our ultimate goal,” Veronica says. “Let’s not play pretend, either. You know what Omega is. You’ve been to Red Grove, you’ve seen it. A Pre-Collapse world would never have believed it, but now that we have destroyed society, no doubt you can see that we’re more than just a conspiracy theory. We’re humanity’s final hope for survival. We alone can cleanse this earth from the useless mass of bodies infecting the world. Imagine, a New World, with only optimal specimens as its occupants. A perfect military, perfect order, a single belief system, one unified government. Ultimate power. World domination.” She laughs. “You fear us, but we are here to bring you hope.”
“You’re a Satan-worshipping cult,” I spit. “You murder innocent people because they might stand in the way of your demented world order, because you see yourself as more human—more worthy of life than the rest of the planet. There’s nothing complicated about what you do, or what you’ve done. You’re easy to figure out: you’re evil. That’s it.”
Veronica rolls her eyes.
“I really don’t care about your small-minded interpretation of Omega’s foundational beliefs.” Veronica sighs. “We’ve been around for centuries, threading our way through every level of society—from local government to federal government, to the monarchy in England, to every war that’s ever been fought. You can thank us for it, all of it.
“This Collapse … it’s been planned for so long,” she goes on. “The Protestants who broke away from England and formed your precious United States? That was a black mark in our history. It was never supposed to happen. The monarchy and the church had carefully kept everything under control for so long—and then came the ‘freedom movement.’ The Revolutionary War, the Declaration of Independence. The oh-so-noble President George Washington. A grave setback for Omega.” She raises her finger. “But it taught us something: you can’t attack directly. We tried that, and we were defeated, at least temporarily. Omega understood then, at last, how to bring the world to its knees: plant the seed behind the scenes, manipulate the idiotic masses, punch holes in the foundation of society, and ignite the bombs when everyone feels safe and comfortable. In essence, the countries of the world let the wolf through their own front doors, and they were stupid enough to call it by glamorous names like societal progress, technological advancement,and world peace.” She scoffs. “We waited over two centuries to make our move again, and this time, we brought you to your knees. The western world, living in their soft, delusional homes, eating fast food, and believing that social justice was the worst problem they faced. There was never any hope for them—we were always coming. We were always the end game.”
“You’re not the end game,” I say firmly. “Your butt’s been kicked before. It can be kicked again.”
“Highly doubtful.” She laughs. “Unlike the days of the Revolutionary War, we now have nuclear weapons, drones, satellites, and modern technological inventions that would shock and amaze you. The world is ours now. Which, of course, leaves you with a choice.”
Not this,I think. It always comes back to this.
“You can keep fighting,” she says, “and eventually, you will die. All of you—every last single human being that has allied themselves in some way with the resistance will perish. We will wipe you off the face of the earth as if you never existed. We control Russia, China, Syria, India, Afghanistan, Pakistan, France, Spain, and of course, let’s not forget Italy. Canada, Mexico, and the United States are all putting up a valiant but pathetic effort to hold us out. All they’re doing is prolonging Judgment Day.”
There is anger in her voice when she says that, and it gives me hope. Even after everything, we are still here. We’re still fighting back, and despite the power that Omega has, they have not yet been able to take total control of our homes.
“Your second option, of course, is to ally yourselves with us,” Veronica continues. “You three in this room—you are all good leaders. People follow you, they like you. And, as much as it pains me to admit it, your military strategies are impressive. If you were to assimilate your troops into ours, we would provide you with everything. Imagine: no more running, no more hiding, no more scrambling for weapons or troops. You would be free to live in luxury once again, with clean clothes, water, and enough food for the rest of your lives. You could be a part of the New Order. You might even have positions of leadership. Doesn’t that sound like a much better alternative than being killed?”
“Sounds like you’re trying to use us to help you conquer the west coast,” Uriah replies darkly, “because you can’t figure out how to do it yourself. So, you want somebody who knows the lay of the land and the way the people who are left think.” He pauses. “Am I right?”
Veronica raises an eyebrow, then flicks a finger over the remote.
The screen begins cycling through photos of cities all across the world. I recognize Berlin and Pakistan. Omega flags are hanging from the buildings. Troops march through the streets. In one picture, Veronica herself is standing at a podium, surrounded by members of the United Nations.