Brainrush 05 - Everlast 02: Ephemeral

by Bard, Richard

  “Aren’t we supposed to evacuate down the hill to the kid’s house if that happens?”

  “Not if alarms are going off all over the place.”

  “Should we use the sat phone to call in the reinforcements?”

  Marshall hesitated. “Jake was clear that we shouldn’t do that until he has the kids in hand. We gotta stick to that.”

  “So we fight,” she said, flipping off the safety on her MP5. She aimed it down the trail.

  Marshall lowered the muzzle of her gun. “You got a death wish or something?”

  She brushed him off, her eyes searching for movement. “You have a better plan?”

  He pulled out his own phone and studied the flashing green icons on the display. “Jake’s still in the main building. Dolphin and Shamer are at BlackFlag’s house, and it looks like Skylar’s circling around to meet Pete and the others. If all hell breaks loose down there and they get taken, then it’s going to be on us to figure out how to get them out.” He disabled the phone and tossed the chip away. “So we need to stay out of sight and avoid capture. That’s our plan.”

  “That’s not going to work.” She pointed to the flattened foliage along the ridgeline. “When those suckers behind us get here, they’re going to see that. They’ll know we’re here somewhere and they won’t stop searching until they find us.”

  Marshall stared at the disturbed vegetation. He swiveled around and seemed to study the thick jungle behind her, then nodded. He took Lacey’s hand and pulled her to her feet.

  “Follow my footsteps exactly,” he said. He let go of her hand and headed off, taking care to walk on the hard pack between the foliage. She shouldered her MP5 and followed, at one point leaping from one downed log to another to avoid crushing any plants underfoot. When they reached the thick tangle, he used his assault rifle to lift the bottom of the brush. “Crawl in. Feet first.”

  The space he’d created was barely eighteen inches wide. “This is your plan?”

  “We don’t have time to argue.” As if to emphasize the point, a distant burst of gunfire echoed from down in the village. Shouts rang out from the direction of the trucks, and Lacey cringed when she realized the men coming down the trail were much closer. She could imagine them running in response to the gunfire.

  “Hurry,” Marshall whispered.

  She dropped to her belly and shimmied into the space. Brambles caught on her clothes and something scurried through the brush behind her, sending a shiver up her spine. When she was all the way in, he pulled his assault rifle back and the brush dropped in front of her face.

  “Hey, what about you?” she asked.

  He crouched in front of her. “I’ve got other plans.”

  “Oh, no, you don’t,” she said, trying to push to her knees.

  “Listen, dammit,” he whispered through clenched teeth. “I know you like to take charge and most of the time that’s fine with me. But not now. Not this time. I’m your husband and it’s my turn to take care of you. You need to stay here and not make a sound. Got it?”

  She’d never seen this side of him and it scared her. It also made her feel safe. She nodded. “I got it,” she said. She wriggled deeper into the brush and watched between the branches as he leaped from log to log toward the ridgeline. He turned and blew her a kiss before finally tucking himself into the sparse underbrush where any fool could see him.

  Chapter 26

  Yóulóng Village

  I RACED DOWN THE TUNNEL behind Little Star, with Ahmed and Sarafina right behind me. We were headed to the Center, where Dad’s thoughts had originated before the alarms cut him off. There had been another man’s presence there, too, and he had seemed just as startled by the alarm as my dad. The man had reached out to me over the Net but I’d ignored him. Dad was in trouble and I wanted to find him. I’d shot up, grabbed my backpack, and pulled Little Star toward the trapdoor leading to the tunnels. I begged him to lead the way. He hadn’t hesitated.

  “So Dad and Lacey are okay?” Sarafina asked, her voice bouncing breathlessly behind me. I could hear her fear. She was trying hard not to panic in the dark confines of the tunnel, and the beam of her flashlight kept jerking this way and that.

  “They were when they checked in from Italy,” I said. Before yanking the Spider off my head, I’d remembered to check the emergency protocol site. Dad and Lacey were out there looking for us. “But that was two days ago.”

  “What about Mom?” Ahmed asked.

  “Dunno.” She hadn’t checked in. Neither had anyone else.

  A couple minutes later, Little Star pulled to a stop beneath an iron ladder. “The tunnel continues for a couple hundred meters farther on. There are two exits near the ruins of the ancient wall. One opens near the airport and the other empties in the cellar of the barracks. This one here opens under the bell shrine that was preserved within the Center. It should be empty at this hour but I will go first to be certain.” When he reached the top of the stairs, he placed an index finger to his lips to remind us to stay quiet. He flicked off his flashlight. We did the same and the space was plunged into darkness. My sister gasped.

  There was movement up above, then a creaking noise, and then Little Star’s silhouette was backdropped by the pale moonlight. He slipped outside and disappeared, and all I could see was the trace outline of the opening. A breeze drifted downward and I smelled vegetation. Then I heard a muffled grunt up above and Sarafina’s hand snapped closed around my arm. I suspected my brother and sister were holding their breath just like me.

  A head popped into view. “All clear,” Little Star whispered. “Come on up.” The three of us scrambled up the ladder to find ourselves in a gazebo pretty much like the one we’d seen in the jungle. Except this one housed a huge bell instead of a Buddha statue. A thick log was suspended horizontally in front of it by two iron chains. The structure could have been a thousand years old. It was surrounded by a beautiful garden of colorful flowers and leafy trees, which was in turn surrounded by the windowed walls of the four-story building that had been built around it. It appeared as if none of the rooms were occupied, though the blinds were drawn on a long string of windows on the top floor.

  “No guards?” Ahmed asked.

  “Just one,” Little Star said, pointing to the shadows beneath the foliage. I squinted and saw the outline of a body. “He was kind enough to give me this.” He held up a key card.

  “Is he dead?” Ahmed asked in a tone that suggested he’d be okay with that. I couldn’t embrace his indifference, but reminded myself that the people who had kidnapped my family and friends had brought this upon themselves, just like the boss man on the bridge.

  “No,” Little Star said, “but he’s going to wake up with a bad headache. Follow me.”

  We stuck to the shadows, our feet crunching on the pebbled path leading through the garden. Little Star used the keycard to open a glass door, and we found ourselves at the intersection of two corridors.

  Little Star hesitated. “Which way?” he asked, looking down at me. Ahmed and Sarafina stared at me too.

  “How should I know?” I asked.

  “What?” my sister said.

  “You’re kidding me,” Ahmed said.

  Their disappointment made me feel horrible, but what was I supposed to do? Sometimes I knew stuff, sometimes I didn’t. I looked in one direction and then the other, but neither felt any different to me. I only knew that Dad’s thoughts had originated from here. I’d only felt him for an instant but I was sure this was the place. I closed my eyes and searched my memory for some clue I might have missed.

  I came up empty.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I have no idea where Dad is.”

  “No worries, pal,” Ahmed said, patting my shoulder. “We’ll search. One floor at a time if we have to. Follow me.” He started walking to the left.

  “Wrong way,” a man’s strained voice said from a ceiling loudspeaker.

  Sarafina cringed. Ahmed spun in a crouch, a knife in his hand. Little
Star took up a defensive stance in the opposite direction. But there was no one there.

  “Wait,” I said, recognizing the overhead voice. “It’s the man who was speaking to Dad on the computer. It’s safe.”

  “You’re right. You can trust me,” the man said. His words were strained. “But we haven’t much time. I can only override the cameras for so long before someone is sent to investigate. Come quickly and I’ll help you find your parents.”

  One minute later we were standing in a basement research lab and I was holding a skullcap in my hand. It reminded me of the one I’d worn to link up with the alien Grid and the memory made me shiver. Little Star and the others stood to one side. My sister was still uneasy after seeing the old man’s clone floating in the chamber at the back of the room, but she wanted answers, too. She’d been immediately drawn to the old man when she first saw his frail body on the hospital bed. His voice had directed us to a position in the room that was in a blind spot between the two wall cameras. But even though we couldn’t be remotely seen, the old man had explained that our voices would still be picked up once he reactivated the system.

  “Quiet,” the man said. “No more talking. Someone in the control room just noticed the cameras are down. Use the cap. I’m switching the cameras back on now.”

  A red light appeared on top of each camera.

  I lowered the cap but it was too large. Only a couple of the probes connected properly with my forehead and scalp. I could hear the man’s thoughts in my head but they were distorted and intermittent.

  I was considering how to fix it when I remembered the Spider in my backpack. I pulled it out, pointed at it, and shrugged toward the computer screen.

  The computer beeped twice, and I took that as a signal I could try using the Spider. I placed it on my head and switched it on. The connection was instantaneous, and I knew the old man had opened a wireless gateway between us.

  The first thing I felt was pain. Not mine—the old man’s. It wasn’t a physical pain; he wasn’t connected to his body anymore. No, his was the worst kind of pain, a hurt that couldn’t be treated with an ice pack or a Band-Aid. His anguish stemmed from emotions that seemed to be fed from thousands of randomized thoughts and data that stretched outward from the computer in this room to other servers in the building and beyond, straining to snap the frail tether of consciousness that struggled to hold them together. The man was filled with despair and longed to escape the millions of electronic claws that grasped at his being.

  My brain instantly reached out to soothe him.

  Ahhh, that’s nice, he said in my head. I appreciate the effort but it’s far too late for that, child. Only in death will I find peace.

  He’d communicated with thoughts, and the absence of any reaction from my brother and sister told me they hadn’t heard it.

  I looked at the hospital bed. The old man’s skin was slack and pale and a machine was breathing for him. I noticed where it was plugged into the wall, and I was again reminded that sometimes taking a life was the right thing to do.

  No, the man’s voice said. That won’t help. That body is lost to me. It’s the death of my mind that I dream about. But my consciousness isn’t only here. It’s everywhere.

  Just as I’d done when I played the video game, I allowed my mind to extend itself into the network that housed what remained of the man’s life. One moment I was listening to him as if he were present in the room, and the next moment my mind had identified the location of every bit of data linked to his being. A fair amount of it mingled throughout a secondary network located ten kilometers away, and I was surprised to discover that some of the data was leaking onto the Internet. My brain embraced every fragment, stemming the flow. That’s when I realized I could help him.

  You honor your father, young man. Like him, your instinct is to help.

  Is he okay?

  The old man’s thoughts were hesitant. He was taken. So was your mother.

  Where are they?

  I’ll show you.

  A video monitor on the counter beside us flickered on.

  I gulped.

  Chapter 27

  Yóulóng Village

  JAKE’S WRISTS WERE BOUND, guards gripped his arms, and his sense of hopelessness multiplied with each new face ushered into the room.

  First it was Becker, Jonesy, and Tony, their hands flex-cuffed behind them, their expressions shocked at the sight of him. A huge guard with a swollen cheek shoved Becker into the iron-barred cell so hard that Becker tripped and fell onto the stone floor. Jonesy tried to move past the guard to help his friend, but the guard kicked the back of his knees and Jonesy toppled next to Becker. When the guard attempted to manhandle Tony in the same fashion, Jake’s best buddy head-butted him with a crack that sounded like two bowling balls being swung together. The guard dropped, his eyes glassy. Six other guards raised their weapons. Tony sniffed and walked into the cell under his own steam. Becker and Jonesy rose to stand beside him.

  They were in the old wing of the barracks that abutted the remains of the ancient wall. Although the interior had been swept clean and the pitched roof appeared to have been recently replaced, the expansive space smelled of mold and age. Other than a lone desk and computer station near the exit door, a large holding cell stretched the full length of the stone-walled room. Another door opened to a hallway leading deeper into the building.

  The downed guard pushed to his feet. His hand was reaching for his holstered pistol when one of the other guards whispered something to him. The big man huffed and glared at Tony. “I will kill you soon enough.”

  Tony ignored him. His face was grim. He locked eyes with Jake and nodded toward the door.

  Francesca shuffled into the room, her eyes downcast and her hands bound at her back. Jake’s lungs stopped working as a guard led her into the cell. She huddled up to Tony, her head bowed.

  Jake twisted free of his guards and lunged toward the bars. “Francesca!”

  She looked up, gasped, then lurched toward him. “Jake.”

  He pressed into the bars, rust scraping his cheeks. Her face was inches away and her eyes danced with fear. He could taste her breath and her smell washed over him. “Thank God you’re okay,” he said. A hand grabbed his cuffed wrists, but before the guard could yank him away, Jake whispered, “I brought friends. Be ready.”

  A second guard grabbed his other arm and the two men pulled him away. Jake’s eyes remained fixed on Francesca’s, waiting to see a glimmer of hope. But all he saw was despair. And when she looked to the door, he followed her gaze and stared, unbelieving, as Marshall, Dolphin, Shamer, and Ma were herded in and shoved into the cell. Marshall nodded to him, and his friend’s eyes twitched in a way that suggested he hadn’t given up hope. Shamer and Dolphin looked scared to death, but Ma’s expression burned with hatred.

  Jake sagged. Their rescue plan had been obliterated and now twice as many people were in danger.

  He expected Lacey, Pete, and Skylar to be next, and his stomach churned at the prospect that his children might follow. Instead, the bastard behind it all sauntered into the room. He carried a tablet in one hand and was followed by Min, the woman who’d interrogated Jake in Amsterdam. He remembered the damage she could do with the bobbles that dangled from her long braid. Two other women slithered in beside her—they must be triplets—and the foursome stood side by side to face him.

  “He’s not so tall in person,” one of Min’s sisters said. She clung to Jiaolong’s arm as if she owned him.

  Min snickered. The third sister simply glared at Jake. She had a firm hold on a tote bag strapped across her chest.

  “Manners, manners,” Jiaolong said. “We haven’t even introduced ourselves yet.”

  Jake felt a spark of hope when no one else was hauled in. “What the hell do you want, you son of a bitch?”

  Jiaolong ignored the outburst and pointed to the women one at a time. “This is Lin, Min, and Zhin. My name is Daniel de Vries, though you may call me Jiaolong.”<
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  “And my name is Jake Bronson, and you can call me judge, jury, and executioner.” The guards tightened their grips on his arms. He ignored them, his eyes never breaking contact with Jiaolong’s. “I’m going to give you one—and only one—chance to let my friends and family go. This is it, pal. Judgment Day. The next words out of your filthy mouth will decide whether you die today or live the rest of your worthless lives in a dirty prison cell.”

  Min lunged forward, snapping her neck and torso to send her bobbles whipping toward Jake’s face. But he was ready this time. Despite his deteriorating senses, his body surged with adrenaline. Using the guards’ grips as a fulcrum, he ducked forward and lifted his legs from the ground. The guards leaned forward to manage his dead weight, and the bobbles shot over Jake’s head and smacked into the left guard’s skull. There was a hollow thunk and the guard dropped to the floor.

  Jake stood back up and grinned. “Nice shot.”

  Min’s face burned with anger. Her body was coiled and the bobbles were back in her outstretched hand. But before she could make another move, Jiaolong stepped forward and grabbed her arm.

  “Steady, sister. He’s trying to provoke you. It’s a lame attempt by a desperate man. All his well-laid plans just collapsed before his eyes.”

  Min huffed but relaxed her posture. Jiaolong turned back to Jake.

  “And you must learn to behave yourself. If not for your own sake, then for theirs.” He motioned toward the cells. “One big happy family, right, Mr. Bronson?”

  Jake steadied himself. Pete and Skylar and Lacey were still out there somewhere.

  Jiaolong snickered. “Was that…hope I saw in your eyes? I think so. Well, that won’t do, now will it?” Raising his voice toward the door, Jiaolong added, “Please show in our guest of honor.”

  Jake held his breath, fearing the worst. But when the weathered peasant woman shuffled in without cuffs or an escort, he had to fight to control his expression. Skylar’s coolie hat was gone but the gray wig still held her disguise together. She stepped to one side and bowed to Jiaolong and his entourage. She appeared every bit the cowed farm woman who’d been summoned to the warlord.