by L. V. Lane
“I saw movement,” I said, my voice little more than a whisper. The sun was rising, and the sky took on a gray, fuzzy quality that brought shapes into view better without the night mode.
“I can feel them. I can definitely feel them, and it’s not a patrol. They are worried.” My mind stuttered and my body locked up. “It’s a child. A child.”
“I see him, sir,” Dano said. “At ten o’clock.”
“We need to leave,” Richard Downe said. “We can’t stop for every—”
“We’ll stop for whatever I say we stop for.” Hudson sent a glare Richard’s way that should have caved his knees. Richard Downe, for all his disheveled appearance and ruddy, stress-lined face, was a man with a great deal of self-belief.
“You have a mission—I am that mission,” Richard continued to complain. His wife held their daughter to her chest but stayed wisely silent.
Richard wasn’t ready to let it drop, and his tirade became a frustrated hiss that poked at Hudson’s limited patience.
I couldn't listen to this. I felt sick to my core.
A child was out there alone on the other side of the street, and he was so frightened. We couldn't leave him; I wouldn’t leave him.
I had no plan of action, but I stood up anyway.
Logan fisted a handful of my collar and slammed me down again. He didn’t say a word, but his anger vibrated through the hand still gripping my collar like he didn’t trust me. I had broken his trust once. I didn’t want to poke at that open wound but there was a child out there, and he would have been right not to trust me again.
“Shut the fuck up,” Hudson snapped at the diplomat who had complained bitterly ever since we picked him up.
Richard stopped talking—a sensible decision. If he could have felt the energy rolling off Hudson, he would have been emptying his bladder instead of making demands.
“Please.” I sounded desperate, but I was desperate, and I wasn’t above begging. I looked from Logan to Hudson. Both their jaws were locked tight. I’d pushed both of them to their limits today—beyond if I was honest. “They are going to find him if we don’t get him. More patrols are coming. You know they are,” I pleaded.
Logan hauled me flush against his body and with a warning shake of his head clamped his fingers over my throat. He whispered in a soft growl, “We’re dealing with it.”
I got the message loud and clear…and I was fully prepared to ignore it unless them ‘dealing with it’ involved rescuing that child.
“Do you think we can reach him?” Hudson asked Dano, dragging his scowl away from our little show. He shifted that hostile glare to the diplomat who was muttering, low and angry, to his wife. “Without compromising the mission.”
“Not easily,” Dano replied, peering over the wall, sights in his hand. Logan and Hudson likewise scoped the site.
Frustrated that I didn't get to look, I wrestled, and Logan let me wear myself out.
“No idea how the kid survived this long,” Dano continued. “We’ve got incoming from two directions, and that street is completely exposed—shit!”
“Yes, I see,” Logan said, sensing I was about to interrupt, his fingers tightened. “Call it Hudson, I’ll go.”
“One minute,” Dano said.
“Go,” Hudson gave the order.
“Don’t let her fucking move,” Logan said to Dano, and without further warning, released me and vaulted over the wall.
I staggered a little at the sudden release, Dano gave me a warning glare.
“What are you doing?” Richard hissed, his body shaking, face red, and fury seeping out of him like a noxious gas.
Hudson signaled to his team, and two guns pointed at Richard—his red fury turned to a sickly, frustrated fear. The rest of the team waited ready at the top of the wall, weapons pointed into that ruinous street.
All this happened within a split second, and I was scrambling up that crumbling slope for the wall before Dano could react. His crushing weight landed on top of me as I reached the top. “Jesus fucking Christ! He’s going to remove my balls if you get so much as a scratch. Keep your fucking head down!”
I could see the child, a little boy, no more than two or three. Dusty streaks covered his pale hair and face, and his clothes were nothing but rags. He clutched a grubby red and blue cartoon backpack in one hand and stick in the other. Bending over, he stopped to poke at something at the side of the road.
To the left in the distance was the familiar clunking of a battle walker.
Legs and arms pistoning, Logan crossed the street at a run, barely slowing to scoop up the child. The little body swung up into his arms, his hand clamping over the child’s mouth as they hit the opposite buildings.
“Hold,” Hudson said into the communicator.
The child struggled weakly. Children were usually vibrant, if I were to color them it would be a brilliant orange—his energy was gray.
“Another twenty,” Hudson said.
My thoughts scattered. Too many presences lurked in the area, and I couldn't tell who was who.
The seconds counted down; the battle walker had almost crossed the intersection and was moving out of sight.
“Five seconds,” Hudson said. “Three, two—”
“Don’t move!” I said this louder than I should. Logan halted, half out of the shadow when gunfire tore up the building to his right.
Two people ran out screaming. More gunfire and they dropped face down onto the street. A patrol emerged from the building behind them. I held my breath; even the whining diplomat had fallen silent. Logan slipped silently back into the building and out of sight. My heart roared, and I struggled to hear past it.
The patrol stood over the bodies, one pushing a corpse with the muzzle of a gun, before rolling them over to search them. There were five people in the patrol. The one inspecting the fallen civilians called something out, gesturing at the body, then the building, then the body again.
The whole team suddenly swung their head toward the northern intersection.
The buzz of automatic weapons and the thunk-thunk of another battle walker could be heard in the distance, and they took off at a run.
“Eloise?” Hudson was looking at me. For once he didn’t seem pissed.
I gaped, struggling to get the wild mental stuttering under control. “Clear. It’s clear,” I said.
“You heard her, Harper,” Hudson said.
A heartbeat later Logan was back over the wall with that tiny bundle of child clasped in his arms.
A soldier hurried to assess the boy whose soft cries were pitiful. I was trying to get command of my legs—and disentangle myself from Dano who was still half crushing me—when the diplomat’s wife stepped up. Their own daughter was a similar age, and the presence of another child soothed the frightened little boy.
Logan shot a glare from me to Dano who held up both hands. “Hey, she was about to go over the damn wall.”
Logan pinned me with another glower. I knew that look, and I knew I’d be paying for that little slip later on. I hadn’t actually been trying to get over the wall, just look, but I doubted Logan would care either way.
I didn't care either way. My lips twitched. Logan’s eyes narrowed.
He turned away with a smirk that said, challenge accepted.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
For all I had dedicated my short adult life into researching the virus, I did not recognize my own signs. I was twenty-five, and no one had ever heard of a dynamic revealing after so long.
It was when my dear research partner, Doctor Tsing commented on how pleasant I smelt that I realized what was happening, what had already happened.
He reported it. I understood why. I had come to love Tsing as a friend, but I hated him a little that day.
Doctor Lillian Brach
Eloise
DAYLIGHT WAS COMING up on us fast. The patrols were combing the area, and we needed to get out.
The store we sheltered in sold captioned T-shirts. The front win
dow and door had been shattered by a blast, and the twisted shelving units lay in jumbled piles, draped with T-shirts and glass. Most of the merchandise was indistinguishable, just a splash of color or the odd letter, but one had been caught stretched between a rack and a broken shelf.
The caption read ‘Funky Fruity’ and it bore a picture of a smiling banana brandishing a bloody scythe.
The T-shirt was giving me the creeps, and I didn’t think I would ever eat a banana again.
Hudson was in discussion with a couple of his team, Logan included, and they were deciding on an extraction point. Staying here another day wasn’t an option, so we needed to leave—one way or another.
I was scared, really scared. I didn’t know a person could still function through this level of mind-numbing terror.
The diplomat was quiet, the rescued little boy and his daughter were both curled up asleep, his wife and a soldier watching over them. The boy had a few scrapes and bruises and was dehydrated, but otherwise appeared surprisingly well. He hadn’t spoken a word since we found him, but that was a worry for later when we were safe.
The discussion broke up. “We’re moving,” Hudson said, signaling to the team. “Pick up five minutes.” Everyone moved at once, visors closing and weapons readied, and the children were carefully woken.
Logan was at my side, snapping the visor down that I didn't think to do for myself. “The pickup location is a short distance from the rear of this building,” he said. “Space is tight in the back alley, but there’s a hotel not far away with a decent size delivery bay.”
I nodded.
Five minutes.
I could get through the next five minutes. I could survive for five minutes.
He tapped my helmet once. I looked away and tried to crush the silly fluttering at a simple gesture that felt like it belonged only to us.
I wanted to stay in this moment, but it wasn't mine to keep. Were we sharing two sides of the same coin, or was I taking a warped slice of reality and conjuring it into my own truth?
There was no time for contemplation, and we exited the back of the building, heading out into the cold air and shadow-filled alley.
Four minutes.
The team had the alley covered, weapons pointing into the shadows ahead and behind, up toward the buildings that braced the lane, and out in every other direction.
The family was ushered forward. I followed, Logan and another soldier carrying the boy. We set a brisk pace to the first intersection where we held for nervous seconds until Hudson called another, “Clear.”
Three minutes.
Thick gravel layered the ground where a building had collapsed. We worked our way swiftly over that treacherous surface, slipping and sliding and crunching it under boots. Against the eerie silence of decimation, it sounded unnaturally loud.
Two minutes.
A delivery truck was half buried, the door open and a corpse behind the wheel, head bowed and dried blood splattering the inside of the cab.
There was a shrill scream. I had never heard such a terrifying sound. My mind whited out. The world stopped…then rushed back so quickly the movements became a blur.
It was the child, the little boy, the once-mute boy, and he had chosen this moment to scream.
All pretense of stealth was lost. We ran, a hand now clamped over the frightened boy’s mouth.
“They’re coming, behind,” I said through a pant. The alley was a tunnel. I knew there was more, but my brain could only process a tunnel. “Five, no six.”
One minute.
Gunfire opened up. Logan’s fingers locked tight around my arm, half lifting me over that slippery ground. Debris was flying, and I heard the distinctive dull pop of bullets making contact. I slipped, was wrenched to my feet, and as I reached stable ground, I was thrust forward.
“Run!” Logan said.
“Thirty seconds,” Hudson roared into the communicator.
Ahead, I saw the shimmering walls of the shuttle, and that strange gap appearing out of nowhere as the ramp lowered.
And I did run, because I could feel the gathering of our enemy and because I knew Logan would follow.
The family was ahead of me, the team, spread out to return fire.
Twenty seconds.
The diplomat and his family ran up the ramp, the little boy whose untimely scream brought the horde down on us was also there. His sobs of hurt and confusion broke my heart.
I hit the ramp at a run. Others followed behind, the ramp shaking under the heavy thud of their footsteps. More gunfire sprayed in both directions. There was blood, I could see blood everywhere. A soldier was dragged in, his leg torn to shreds.
An explosion rocked the shuttle, shaking everyone about. There were screams and waves of agony, and I was on my knees.
I tried to get up. I didn’t know where I was going, but I needed to get up.
I couldn't move, there was a massive weight on top of me.
And screaming.
The screaming came from me.
“Ten seconds. Pull back!” Hudson bellowed.
The pain, oh god the pain. I was being ripped to pieces.
I was swimming through blood, and I blinked and pushed at blood that wasn’t there.
“He’s here.” I recognized Dano’s voice. He was holding me; stopping me from running to the man who had just collapsed on the floor of the shuttle. The ramp was closing. The sounds of gunfire faded until the silence was peppered by the harsh, ragged sound of my own breathing.
Into that void, the whole movie warped back, the mental stuttering cleared, and everything played back in slow motion. Logan was still outside with two other men when the grenade hit, the shrapnel tearing into them. Then Holden’s call and they ran for the shuttle.
A short buzz as rounds of ammunition ripped into him, and he pitched forward onto the shuttle floor.
He said he would keep me safe. I didn’t expect him to die doing it.
I was back in the present, and Logan lay on the floor, convulsing, bathed in blood. There was so much blood, and trauma and every part of his once beautiful body was shredded.
There were three people around him. Everyone else was strapping into their seats. Dano still held me, but I was fighting.
Logan stopped convulsing. I saw the bag as they pulled it out of storage, a long person sized bag that they dragged his body into.
“He’s not dead!”
My arms were still flailing, but my fight was already waning when I felt a sharp pinch on the side of my neck.
“I know,” Dano said. “He’s got a chance. Not much of one, but he does have a chance.”
And then my world faded out.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Eloise
I WOKE IN a windowless, white room, the lighting a soft but clear glow. The bed, which I lay on, felt crisp beneath my searching fingers. To my right was a bank of medical paraphernalia, bleeping softly.
A man stood opposite with a holovid in his hand.
“Welcome back,” he said smiling. I sensed immediately that he was a Healer, and his projected peace was a balm over my traumatized soul.
“Logan?” My voice croaked, that single word a challenge for my parched throat.
His smile faded. “Gone, I’m sorry.”
I had braced myself—it didn’t help. I was numb and cold. So cold.
I had done this, insisted he save the child. A child whose cry had blown our cover.
“The child?”
His smile returned but tempered. “Alive and doing well. I saw to his recovery myself.”
I was so relieved.
Not for nothing, then. My heart ached for my own selfish loss, but I knew I would make that same choice again, even knowing how it would end.
And so would Logan.
“Thank you,” I said. “I’m glad.”
I turned over onto my side, heedless of the cables dangling and pulling and pinching as I stretched them, and there I curled up and wept.
CHAPTER N
INETEEN
Eloise
“HAVE YOU BEEN on a Trident class before, Eloise?” the recruiting officer asked.
He was a young man with a friendly demeanor, and I had never met him before.
“No,” I replied. The moment had a certain déjà vu.
The prospect filled me with trepidation, but it wasn’t like I had a choice.
There was a war, and people with skills were deployed as and how it suited that cause. I was an Omega, there were very few of us, and we could make all the difference to the delicate balance of power. A gift or a curse?
I had heard both sides of the argument and had recently landed on a firm opinion that it was indisputably a curse.
“You will be protected,” he said as if that statement would make the situation more palatable.
Once upon a time, it had filled me with a vague sense of apprehension. Now it provoked naked fear.
“It will work better if you invest in the relationship. All Omegas are popular, but as I’m sure you know, a Singular is very rare.” He smiled—he had smiled often in the short time we had come to be acquainted. It wasn’t a comforting sort of smile. “They restricted it to Alphas, but we were still inundated with applications. We had no option but to let them fight it out in the end—not that any of them complained.”
His gleeful smirk made me nauseous, and I wished he had kept his opinions to himself.
I knew how these situations worked—I really wished I didn’t.
“Yes, three long days of pummeling the shit out of one another. The guy that came out on top…Let’s just say, he wanted the—ah—position badly.” His eyes became hooded in a way that made me uncomfortable. “I’m guessing he’s hoping for the investment, even if it’s not guaranteed. Healers can’t help themselves; it’s in their nature. But Singulars, you hold a certain mystery.” He laughed. “Well, not that much mystery, I think everyone knows how investment works—no one fights like that for ordinary. Makes me wish I had the necessary skills.”