He gave me a hard look, the corners of his eyes tightening. “Yes.”
CHAPTER NINE
“And where do you think these mysterious files might be located?” I was positioned with my shoulder against one of the giant pillars. Case had just finished telling us everything he knew about Dixon, which wasn’t much, other than he was an ex-government-agent-turned-militia-man and might have kept diaries or some kind of records about his dealings. Case hadn’t bothered to try to find them once Dixon had died. Why was anyone’s guess.
Without a doubt, Case was still holding back. But was the nature of what he’d omitted essential to us or just personal?
“I have no idea where Dixon kept his personal journals,” Case said as he rose from the couch, where he’d relayed his story, sans any emotion. “I told you, I’m not even sure anything exists. Dixon had a few contacts he kept in touch with in the city, but I never knew their names, never saw them, and have no idea if they were government or not. Dixon never said either way. If you knew Dixon, you’d understand that he didn’t share and didn’t tolerate probing questions.”
“Dixon had a vendetta against other militias,” I pointed out, shoving off from the pillar. “He kept contacts in the city. When he came to your militia and killed everyone, you left with him. And you never bothered to ask why he took down an entire troop? Logically, you were owed an explanation, even if he didn’t choose to elaborate.”
Maisie, who was now located on top of the powered-down tech table, interrupted with, “The definition of a militia is a group of—”
“Stop,” I commanded the egg. She ceased immediately. This was the fifth random definition she’d spouted since Daze had taken her out of his pocket. “No more definitions unless we ask, Maisie.”
“Okay, Holly,” she replied. “I detect intelligent software beneath me. It lacks power, but it can be enabled.”
My gaze landed on the tech table. We knew it worked, because we’d used it to charge the pico, but we hadn’t taken the time to uncover its other uses. It might be an asset. “Thanks for the information,” I told her. We’d learned that praising her encouraged similar behavior. “We’ll check it out in a minute.” I glanced at Case, who’d stopped in front of me. “We’re not done here,” I told him. “If you think Dixon kept information about his past in the form of journals, including what he was up to and who he was conspiring with, you must—at the very least—be able to give an educated guess about where he would’ve hidden them. Where did you spend the most time?”
Lockland was reclining on one of the couches. Bender turned in his seat to face us. Both shot expectant looks at Case. They weren’t letting him off the hook this time. They knew, just as much as I did, that he was still withholding.
What the outskirt had chosen to share had barely taken ten minutes, and he and Dixon had been together for years. Case was risking a lot by not divulging more.
“In the year prior to his death, we were headquartered here,” Case answered tightly. He was visibly uncomfortable, which piqued my attention.
“When you moved from place to place, did you take everything?” I prodded. “Or did you leave things behind?”
“We took our essentials and personal items,” he said.
Lockland stood, making his way toward us. “Did this become your headquarters so you could be close to the city? Did Dixon have regular meetings in the city once he arrived?”
Case nodded, his eyes locked on the ground. “He had meetings fairly regularly, but not always in the city.”
If not in the city, then where?
It was odd, since there wasn’t anything around here, which meant Dixon likely traveled South.
I shot Case a disgruntled look. “You lived with the man for years, he left regularly, and you don’t know where he went?” My voice couldn’t have conveyed any more disdain. “You never thought to ask him?”
Bender came to stand by me, crossing his brawny arms in front of him, his feet spread as he confronted Case. “You’re leaving something major out, aren’t you? You weren’t partners, were you? He wasn’t your mentor or your savior—your relationship was something else entirely.”
My brows furrowed as I glanced at Bender. His face was set, no hint of a growl in his words. I contemplated what he’d said as my gaze landed back on Case, who would not meet my eyes. Then it all came tumbling together. “You were his prisoner.” I tried to keep the dismay out of my voice, because Case was so…capable. But Bender was right. It was the only thing that made any sense. Case had no real information to share, and there had to be a logical explanation. “Were you…were you…did he keep you to…” I stammered, not able to finish the sentence. There was a highly likely chance that a man like Dixon would save someone like Case so he could use him whenever he wanted.
Case’s face clouded with anger as he finally raised his head. “No, I wasn’t his sex slave.” His voice was dead, void of any emotion. “I would’ve killed him for that.”
“Then why—”
Before I could get the rest out, Case turned and stalked toward the back of the room, disappearing through the door.
“Let him go,” Lockland said. “He’s going to need some time. We just forced something out of him he never wanted known to the world.”
Bender ran a hand over his face as we all moved toward the seating area. “That is seriously fucked up. This guy Dixon comes in and saves him from one bad situation, kills his tormentors, only to hold him hostage for years. Maybe he had savior emotional bullshit mixed in with some hero worship. Otherwise, he would’ve killed the bastard and been done with it. That’s what I would’ve done.”
My eyes tracked to the back of the room. “Damn. It explains a lot.” So much. “How do we know Case didn’t kill him? I bet my coin he did, and that asshole deserved it.” Now that we had the missing piece, which finally explained Case’s reluctance to share what he knew about Dixon, things began to make sense. I was ultimately sad to find out the truth, but I was relieved to finally have answers.
Lockland sat forward, bracing his elbows on his thighs. “Keep in mind that he can hear everything we’re saying.”
“Yeah, about that,” I said. “Listening in on us has to end immediately.”
“It will,” Lockland said. “But we can’t forget we’re in his space, not the other way around.”
“Man, he’s had a rough life,” Darby muttered. “I think we should cut him some slack in light of this new information.”
“I understand the emotional response,” I said. I felt it, too. It messed with my mind in ways I couldn’t fully comprehend at the moment. “But we still don’t know this outskirt well enough to excuse all of his prior behavior.” Yet. I sighed as I ran a hand through my hair, which was still semiclean, since I’d been in the stall last night. It was a little strange to be able to get my fingers through it.
“I don’t mean give him a break, as in, we drop all the rules he has to follow,” Darby said. “I’m talking about letting him have some breathing room alone.”
“We can do that,” I agreed. “As soon as we figure out a plan, we’re out of here.” I was willing to give Case as much time as he needed.
“The first thing on the agenda is Bender and I heading to Port Station,” Lockland said. “After that, we figure out the best way to breach the government building. We don’t head back to the city until that’s done.”
“It would be helpful if we had Dixon’s notes,” I said. “He worked for the bureau. He had to have detailed some things to keep track of his connections. If this is where he and Case stayed for the last year, a journal or tablet, by rights, should be here somewhere.”
Daze hopped up from his place next to me. “If it’s here, I bet I can find it. I found all those protein flakes when I went looking before. I don’t remember seeing any journals, but I wasn’t looking for those at the time.”
I raised my eyebrows, nodding. “I bet you can, kid. You don’t need my permission to start looking.” I made an a
ll-encompassing gesture. “Have at it.” Daze darted into the middle of the room, disappearing behind a crate. I addressed Lockland. “You and Bender head to Port Station, and Darby and I will try to figure out what the tech table has to offer. I’d be surprised if it doesn’t have mapping software or some useful intel about the city.”
Lockland nodded. “If we’re going to strike the Bureau of Truth, we need to do it when they least expect it.” According to Roman’s map, the mysterious building that housed the bureau was located in one of the most populated neighborhoods in town. Government Square was where families and law-abiding citizens lived.
“Middle of the day?” I asked. That could backfire on us spectacularly.
“No, I was thinking just after dawn,” he said. “They probably aren’t expecting us to attack them at home at all, but if they are, they’ll figure it’ll happen under the cover of blackout. They may relax their guard first thing in the morning.”
“We already have an advantage,” I said. “They have no idea we’re pursuing them because of the medi-pod, so it’s unlikely they would think we’d come to them. If they’re smart, they’ll assume we want to go up against them in a place that’s more advantageous to us. Not at their front door. Or basement door, as it stands.”
“We have no idea what they assume yet,” he said. “We keep a very low profile moving forward.”
“Agreed,” I said.
“What we need to do is discuss things with Claire,” Bender growled. “She’s been working her ass off double time to get us information from inside the government about this group. We don’t move without talking to her.”
“Has anybody heard from her recently?” I asked. I worried about Claire. I couldn’t help it, even though I didn’t need to, because she had no problem holding her own. She was strong, efficient, and took no shit. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t vulnerable, especially with the Bureau of Truth looming over her and her small group of loyalists. We’d always been careful to keep our affiliation with her loose, but I’d known her since I was a child. It wouldn’t take a brilliant scientist to figure out the connection.
“I heard from her last night,” Lockland said. “She mentioned that things are getting tense within the ranks. She has a feeling something’s about to happen. She’s supposed to get back to me tonight, but if we stay here, we won’t get a signal.”
“We can fly out later, if needed,” I said, relieved there was news. “We don’t have to be inside the city limits to get a hold of her.”
“Sounds good,” Lockland said. “When Case gets back, he can take us to my craft. The meeting in Port Station is set for an hour from now.”
I sat back. “Is your source meeting you outside Port Station?”
“Yes,” Lockland said. “Our usual location, right past the gate near the old buildings. Bender will be close by, monitoring with an amplifier.”
“What does your gut say about this being a setup?” I asked. We couldn’t rule it out.
“Higher than ten,” he replied. “But I’m eighty-five percent certain they’ll be willing to make the trade because they don’t want what happened with the takeover of Tandor’s men to happen again.”
“If that’s true,” I said, “you’ll have bargaining power. If you use my E-unit as leverage, make it count. They will be able to make a lot of bombs, which they could use against us or the city. We don’t need that to come back and haunt us later.” Port Station was not a well-off city. If the powers that be in Port Station decided to overthrow our main government, we’d technically be aiding them by providing the means to make their own weapons.
“Don’t worry, I’ve got it covered,” Lockland said. Behind us, Case came through the doorway. Lockland stood. “The meet shouldn’t take longer than two hours.”
I nodded. “I’ll be monitoring your return.”
CHAPTER TEN
Case walked through the front entryway forty-five minutes later, back from dropping Bender and Lockland off, his face drawn. He headed toward the cooling unit without a word. Daze was still searching the area for anything Dixon might’ve left behind, and Darby had gone to inspect the medi-pod in the back.
The tech table was on, and I was chatting with Maisie. She was issuing me commands, and I was failing to understand them. So far, we’d found only stored topographical maps of the area and locations of government buildings that were likely no longer standing.
It seemed these barracks had been a gathering point for troops in the area. They’d spend a few days here and get their needed supplies and orders before being sent out on their next mission. Nothing overly exciting.
“Interface with the hologram capabilities by placing the palm of your hand on the bottom right quadrant,” Maisie said.
“I’ve already done that three times,” I grumbled. “You keep telling me to do the same thing, and it keeps not working.”
Case took a seat across from me, his elbows resting on his thighs, his face blank. His body language indicated that he was in no mood to talk, which I completely ignored.
“Put your hand on the other side,” I ordered. “On the bottom right. Maybe the table’s turned around, even though the writing is this side up for me.”
Case obeyed my command without comment. As soon as his palm hit the table, a large box blinking the word passcode flashed on the screen.
I stood and moved to his side of the table, since the lettering had switched to face him, and sat down, but not too close. “Darb, I think we have something,” I called. “It’s finally showing us something new.”
Before I could ask Maisie for help, she said, “Passcode is obscured, but logical. Suggest a rational guess.”
“What does she mean by rational?” I asked. “Opposed to irrational?”
Darby scooted next to me, edging me over so I hit Case, who immediately shifted away like I’d fired my laser gun through his thigh. Darby settled in, oblivious. “She means that the military would’ve used something that new troops coming in would know, something easy.”
I turned, raising a single eyebrow. “How in the hell do you understand this status reader so well? It’s like you two have a shared brain. Daze is getting there, but when she enters this mode, she makes no sense to me.”
Darby chuckled. “It’s just standard computerspeak. I’ve internalized enough data over the years to understand her jargon. It’s all constructed similarly. If I was writing her program, I’d use the same words. Daze is smart enough to pick up on it.”
Darby was being polite by not calling me out as stupid. Daze knelt next to us. “Smart enough to pick up on what?”
“Apparently,” I said, “something that eludes me called computerspeak. Maisie wants us to make a rational guess, versus an irrational guess, at what the passcode to access the table might be.”
Maisie said, “Rational constitutes words in the realm of commonality shared by the inhabitants of this location. Irrational would be words chosen at random, meant to confuse.”
“I get it now,” I grumbled.
Daze began to chirp, “Passcode: troops.” When that didn’t work, he continued, “Passcode: militia. Passcode: weapons. Passcode: barracks.” The word passcode kept flashing. Nothing else was happening.
Darby said, “Let’s try something more mundane. Passcode: rations. Passcode: sergeant. Passcode: artillery. Passcode: rank.”
I glanced around the large space, trying to picture what life would’ve been like with military personnel all over, what they would’ve been doing, and how they would’ve interacted in this space. “What did they call something like this building? There’s so much stored here, and we’re only occupying one of the levels. There has to be at least ten levels to this place by my count.”
Case’s voice was low as he intoned, “Passcode: stockade.”
The tech table sprang to life.
Small compartments I hadn’t even noticed at each corner of the table opened, and small cameras no bigger than my thumb slowly emerged. On cue, they all
clicked on, beams of light converging above the tabletop as a man’s face began to take shape.
Darby gave a whoosh of excitement, slapping his leg. “It’s a 4-D hologram program! At the time, it was brand-new. Almost no one had it. Leave it to the military. The technology makes the images look super lifelike. It’s considered 4-D because the images can be manipulated and usually come with sound.”
We watched as the man’s head solidified, his coloring perfect, his facial expressions clear, the small graying at the edges of his short haircut standing out, as he ordered, “State your mission, rank, and ID, soldier.”
Case didn’t hesitate. “Mission: intel. Rank: corporal. ID: 76351.”
I gaped, my mouth dropping open. “How did you know that number—”
The sergeant interrupted with, “Welcome back, Corporal Harrison. Full access granted.” The sergeant’s face turned to mist as the tiny pixels wisped apart, coalescing a moment later to create a perfect map of our location. It showed the barracks the way it was before disaster struck.
“His name, rank, and number are etched on the inside of my sleeping pod,” Case answered. “I figured he was probably one of the guys stationed here permanently.”
I tentatively reached toward the image.
“Go ahead,” Darby encouraged. “I think you can manipulate it with your hands. The technology for this was pretty advanced, allowing simple physical interaction with users.”
I chuckled. “You sound like Maisie. Pretty soon, we won’t be able to tell the two of you apart.” Once my finger was close to the outside of the building in the image, the pixels beneath my finger turned red. I tentatively brushed my hand to the right, and the building moved, changing perspective. “Look at all these rooms. I wonder if we can get to them. Do you think they’re still stocked?” I moved my finger up and down, side to side, mesmerized by the way the hologram moved. “This is amazing.”
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