Complex Three (The Savage Horde Series Book 3)

by Chris Bostic

  “Seriously! Where are they at?” Connie asked.

  “To the right.” Jade motioned well off to the side. “By the edge of the woods.”

  “How’d they get way out there?” Connie cut the wheel, throwing everyone to the side. Then he remembered to say, “Hang on!”

  “The elevator,” Barta explained while Jade clung to the back of Connie’s seat for dear life. “A concealed shaft opens out by the woods in case we ever needed to make a quick escape.”

  “So that’s how Smig got downstairs,” Joe mumbled.

  “Actually there’s a pulley system inside the house to lower him,” Jade answered. “There just wasn’t anyone there to pull him back up, so he had to take the elevator.”

  “I’m confused,” Connie said, growing more agitated by the second. “Then who opened the garage door? I didn’t do it.”

  “The dogs,” Jade said. “Now please be careful. Don’t run them over. They’re right beside us.”

  Joe hadn’t noticed Bruno and Bruce, but finally made out the thin, diminutive shape of Mira and the even shorter Smig. They were free of the woods, rocking and rolling across the uneven ground toward the bus.

  It seemed to Joe like Mira could leap past her brother and be there in a matter of seconds. Still, she held back, like a family looking out for each other.

  Leaving no one behind, he thought, and felt the guilt well up inside him. Leisa apparently felt differently.

  “Good grief. There’s nothing quick about these people,” she whispered to Joe.

  With headlights off, Connie took the vehicle cross country toward the others—not that Joe could see any roads. He came to a stop right next to Mira and Smig.

  “Keep going,” Jade said. “We need to load Smig at the back door.”

  “I’ll just carry him,” Connie said, getting out of his seat.

  Jade stopped walking down the aisle to laugh. “Oh, Sarge, not even you can pick him up. You’ll throw out your back.”

  “I’m not an old man,” he shot back.

  Joe was in no mood for joking and let the chance to needle Connie slip by. His fingers drummed on the seat, growing louder and faster until Leisa grabbed his hand.

  “Stop. You’re making me nervous,” she said with a grin that came out more like a grimace.

  “You too, eh?” He clenched his hands into fists and smacked them on his knees. “I can’t wait here any longer. I’m going to help.”

  Leisa nodded and let him hurry down the aisle behind Jade. She already had the back door open to lower a ramp with the push of a button.

  Before it even hit the ground, Bruno and Bruce were bounding onto the transport. They ignored Joe to find seats in the back row where they could stare out the open door.

  Smig got himself lined up with the ramp while Mira waited behind him. Joe thought she still looked very young, if a bit more plastic and featureless than the older girls. Still, she was plainly feminine and rather pretty when not foaming at the mouth like a rabid animal.

  Mira tenderly urged her brother up the ramp, and then galloped up the ramp behind him so quickly that Joe had to step aside into a seat, bumping into Bruce.

  With the dog and Smig blocking him in, he couldn’t completely avoid an impact with Mira.

  Bruce yelped as Joe landed on him, and wriggled out from underneath him.

  “Pardon me,” Mira told Joe, and offered him a hand to pull him up from the chair. “I’m terribly sorry about that.”

  He looked her over for a millisecond, and accepted the hand. There wasn’t a trace of warmth in her grip, but her lips curled into a beaming, pointed-toothed smile.

  “And who are you?” she said as if they’d never met before.

  “Uhm, Joe,” he said, and looked at her curiously.

  Rather than move down the aisle, she kept jabbering. Her personality immediately reminded him of Jade.

  “I can be a little out of control sometimes. I get in a big hurry and kind of forget to watch out for everyone.” She leaned in closer, and reached up to touch the scratch on his face from his earlier tussle with her. “Oh, my. Did I hurt you, Joe?”

  He flinched at her touch, saying, “Not this time.”

  CHAPTER 13

  Mira frowned, but didn’t reply right away. Smig moved down the aisle, blocking Joe’s retreat. So she kept her palm pressed to the cut on Joe’s cheek until he could finally squirm away.

  “That looks painful,” she said softly.

  “It’s fine,” he replied. “We should sit.”

  A flash in the distance punctuated the remark. Seconds later, rolling thunder shook the sides of the unstable bus like a giant gust of wind.

  “C’mon,” Joe said.

  Mira followed him down the aisle like a faithful pet. Joe slipped into the seat next to Leisa, leaving Mira in the aisle. He watched her for a moment, and finally turned to tell her to sit behind him. She planted herself just in time. Connie revved the engine, and the vehicle jerked forward violently.

  “Sorry,” Connie said as Jade nearly face planted again. “Hard time getting this beast to shift.”

  “You’re doing great, Sarge,” Jade chirped and hopped up onto the arm of his chair.

  “And you’re a good navigator. Tell me again where we’re going, darling. I can’t see a thing.”

  “There’s a ring road around the forest that will hit the main highway to Pasun, but we’ll have to head toward the explosions to get there.”

  “Not a great idea.” Smaller flashes indicative of rifle fire crackled across the distant horizon like angry fireflies. “Can I keep going cross country?” Connie asked.

  “Until you hit the river. It can be forded if necessary, but certainly risky to try to drive across. Or there’s the boat ramp.” Jade tilted her head to the side and touched her earpiece. “The shooting is still far enough away…relatively anyway.”

  “How relative?”

  “A mile and a half.”

  Connie took his eyes off the non-existent road to ask, “And how far is it to the highway?”

  “About a mile.”

  “Yikes.” Connie turned back to the others. “You’d better buckle up. I’m gonna make a break for it.”

  No one offered any objections.

  Joe wrapped an arm around Leisa’s shoulder and pulled her close to him. She sighed as he squeezed her tightly, and put her head on his shoulder.

  “Who’s this?” came a high-pitched cheep in his ear. Joe looked up to find Mira inches away. When Leisa turned around, she stuck her head between the two of them. “Hi. I’m Mira.”

  “Uhm…hello, Mira.” Leisa shied away from the hyperactive girl. “Can I help you?”

  “That’s the wrong question,” she said. “You should be asking how I can help you. That’s what I do. I’m the fixer.”

  Mira spoke at an insanely rapid pace to the point Joe could barely keep up with her. She gripped the back of Joe’s seat with talons and refused to budge as Connie rocketed the unstable vehicle over some very rough terrain.

  Finally, the ride leveled out when Connie hit the ring road. Joe was momentarily concerned that Mira would jump over the seatback and try to squeeze between him and Leisa.

  “Isn’t this exciting?” Mira said. “It seems like I was cooped up in that house for such a long time. I don’t know. My memory is kind of fuzzy on the last few days.” She abruptly revolved away from Joe to face Faith and Barta. “Hey! Where’s Frederick? And where’s Best?”

  The two sisters looked between each other. Faith finally replied, “He left with Bessie for the city.”

  “Are we going to pick him up? I sure hope so.” Mira turned back to Joe and Leisa who had slouched down in their seat to maintain a modicum of personal space. “Have you met him?”

  “We haven’t had the pleasure,” Leisa deadpanned and sank farther into the seat. Joe kept a tight grip on her arm in case she fell all the way into the floor.

  “You’re just going to love him,” Mira said. She climbed up on
the back of the seat like a cat and stared down at her prey. “It’s going to be so much fun having you two around. I can just tell.”

  Joe wasn’t as convinced. He cringed and sank lower.

  He shot a glance across the aisle at Faith and Barta. Neither of them seemed to pay him the least amount of attention. They were both staring at Connie, who was being overloaded with driving directions and other suggestions from Jade.

  “If everyone doesn’t shut up, he’s gonna blow his top,” Joe whispered to Leisa.

  Her eyes trailed off toward Mira. “I might first.”

  “You should really take a seat, Mira,” Joe said. “I wouldn’t want you getting hurt.”

  “I might,” Leisa muttered when the girl refused to move.

  “I can see better up here,” she said. “And I’m tired of feeling so sluggish. Whatever Smig did to me really didn’t seem to help very much. We need to find Frederick so he can fix it.”

  “I’m sure we will,” Joe said, though he knew they were headed elsewhere first. Or so he thought.

  “Wait a minute,” Mira said. “I could just ask him for some advice. I can open a quick comm link, no problem.”

  “Say what?” Joe shot upright. “Jade said not to. It’s not a good-”

  “Just a quick connection. I’ll lock his coordinates down and shoot him a quick message. No big deal.”

  Based on what Jade had told Joe earlier, it was a huge deal. There was a major risk involved in connecting to the Republic’s communication network.

  “Jade!” Joe yelled. “You need to stop Mira.”

  “Why? Smig can do it. I’m helping Sarge navigate.”

  Connie chimed in, saying, “And I can’t see where-”

  “Now!” Joe shouted. “Before she kills us all!”

  The brakes locked up, throwing Joe against the knee wall in front of his seat. Mira sat tight on the seatback, barely rocked by the sudden deceleration.

  As Jade regained her composure and turned around, Mira said, “I’ve got a lock on Frederick.”

  “Are you on the grid?” Jade asked, rushing to Mira. “Please stop.”

  The swift girl slipped into the seat closer to the window, saying, “Ooh, there’s so much good stuff in here.”

  “Don’t look at anything,” Jade pleaded. “Please get out of there.”

  Joe looked over the back of his chair at Mira curled into a ball. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head.

  “Mira, stop!” Jade hollered, but she obviously wasn’t listening.

  The dull lighting of the bus brought a look of sheer terror to Jade’s normally sparkling blue eyes. She leaped onto Mira, trying to wrestle her to her side.

  Realizing Jade was trying to deactivate Mira, Joe reached over his seatback to try to help out.

  “Leave her be,” Smig commanded.

  Jade sat up and turned to Smig in a panic. “Why didn’t you stop her? You’re the one who took down her safety protocols. She has no parameters.”

  Like normal, Smig showed no emotion when he said, “I would say it is too late, baby sister. By now she will be so deeply embedded in their web that we might as well let this run its course.”

  “Are you serious?” Joe blurted out.

  Jade leaned against Joe’s chair looking utterly defeated. “I don’t like it, but Smig is probably right.”

  “Smig is always right,” Faith said. “It’s very annoying.”

  “Someone just tell me what I’m doing,” Connie barked from the front. He sounded equally frustrated. Joe figured it was because he preferred to be the one giving orders. “Can we get outta here?”

  “Might as well drive onward,” Smig said, as gunfire continued to crackle in the distance.

  The echoing shots of old-fashioned cartridge rifles let Joe know that it wasn’t Regulator troops. His coilgun spit out nickel-plated bolts with the quiet whisper of electromagnetic power. Only the savages still used military technology from the last century.

  “Fine,” Jade huffed and headed back to the front. “We’re almost to the bridge.”

  The bus lurched as Connie slammed it back into forward gear. Mira groaned and rocked in her seat, but it seemed to have nothing to do with the ride.

  Joe scowled at her putting them all in danger, but continued watching the expressions subtly change on her angelic, yet plastic-looking, face.

  She shot upright as if struck by a bolt of lightning. “I found him. He’s at Gogury!”

  “I could have assumed as much,” Smig said.

  “He’s in Complex Three. We have to get there. He’s in grave danger.”

  CHAPTER 14

  “Like hell we do. We need to get outta here first,” Connie said, “and it’s not looking good.”

  “Say what?” Joe looked away from Mira, still scowling at what she’d done. The world outside had only gotten worse. Through the windshield, he found a brand new fire blossoming. The raging flames were so close he squinted. “What’s going on?”

  Connie stood on the brakes, giving everyone another good jostling.

  “It’s the bridge,” Jade said. “Someone burned it out.”

  “And here they come!” Connie shouted.

  Joe narrowed his eyes. Even at the distance, reduced to shadows by the flames, he made out the telltale outlines of the most vile creatures on the planet. Packed in shoulder to shoulder, their bulbous heads bounced on stick thin bodies.

  At least the backlighting prevented him from seeing their razor sharp teeth. The pungent smoke camouflaged their stomach-turning, fishy odor.

  “Savages,” he muttered.

  “We’re off-roading this thing,” Connie declared. Despite having heard about the river being too difficult to cross, Joe didn’t argue. Not with the savages bearing down on them.

  Connie jammed on the gas pedal, throwing Joe back into his seat. The air left his lungs with a whoosh.

  The bus bounced over the uneven ground like a bronco, throwing Leisa onto Joe, then knocking her back to the window. He gripped the seatback for dear life.

  “Where to?” Connie hollered at Jade.

  “Turn right and head down a ways.”

  “That’s not very specific,” Connie said, and Joe couldn’t help but chuckle. Ordinarily, Jade was overly precise, even when precision wasn’t necessary.

  The laughter evaporated when a bullet clanked off the side of the bus. Joe jumped on Leisa to hold her down.

  “They’re shooting at us,” he said.

  “Thanks, Captain Obvious.” She somehow forced a grin through a dire situation.

  “It’s not the time for jokes.”

  “No sh-”

  A bullet tore through the window over Faith and Barta, showering them in glass.

  “Get down!” Connie jerked the wheel to adjust course. The bus hit a depression so hard that Joe bounced off Leisa and fell back into the aisle.

  One of the dogs yelped in the back.

  Joe crawled his way back to Leisa as more bullets impacted the side of the vehicle with metallic thunks. He could think of nothing but the maniacal grins of the enemy, piranha teeth bared. No doubt they charged like fanatics, intent on killing everything in sight, just like when he had been pursued in the savage hills.

  It wasn’t specifically the shooting that worried him as the bus continued to be pelted by bullets. The savages were notoriously poor shots. But a lucky shot could disable the bus. If so, sheer numbers would overwhelm them in a matter of seconds. Then the bayonets and rifle butts, and those cursed teeth, came into play.

  The flaming bridge faded behind them, plunging the bus back into darkness. Joe held onto the seat with one hand, and Leisa with the other one. Her breath came shallow and fast, much like his own.

  Jade and Connie were highlighted by the low green lights of the instrument panel. He kept his face almost pressed to the windshield as if that would help him see where he was driving.

  “Is everyone okay?” Jade turned around to ask.

  “Forget them!’
Connie yelled. “Where am I going?”

  “We’re okay,” Faith answered.

  “Great,” Mira added, apparently back from her trip into the Republic’s web. “This is exciting.”

  Joe continued holding Leisa as the bus slammed its way over rough terrain. Thankfully, the vehicle was more stable than Joe had assumed.

  In the row behind him, with bullets still pinging off the exterior, Smig and Mira spent their time nonchalantly talking about what she’d found on the government’s servers.

  “It must be nice to not know fear,” he whispered to Leisa.

  She kept a tight grip on his arm. “True th-”

  The bus hit another bump, taking the words from her mouth. Joe rose, and slammed back down on the floorboards, practically crushing Leisa as he landed.

  “Sorry,” he mumbled and slid off of her until he was wedged under the seat.

  “The river looks higher than normal,” Jade was saying from up front. “Turn left here!”

  “Seriously?” The doubt in Connie’s voice wasn’t encouraging.

  “Yes!”

  “Then hang on!”

  “Great,” Joe muttered and bit his lip. The vehicle careened hard to the side, then raced down an embankment. Before Joe’s stomach could rise all the way into his throat, the bus bottomed out.

  The vehicle scraped something hard. Joe was certain the wheels would be torn off. Next thing he knew, water poured in through the shattered window on Faith’s side.

  He shot upright, spluttering to clear his mouth and nose. With the water rising rapidly, he knew they had to be sinking to the bottom of the river.

  “Bail out!” he yelled, yanking on Leisa’s arm to pull her toward the open window.

  “We’re okay,” Jade said, already standing in the aisle.

  As strange as it seemed, the bus leveled out, and the water ceased pouring inside. In the back row, the two dogs jumped onto the seats to keep out of the water on the floorboard.

  “Thank all that’s holy. That was insane, darling.” Connie stood up from his seat and turned to face the others.