Invader: Book Seven in the Enhanced Series

by T. C. Edge

  My voice clatters suddenly up my throat, and my hazel eyes catch light. I stare at her with every inclination to search her head for what I need.

  I’ll do it if I have to. I’ll damn well do it…

  She takes a backwards step, lifts her hands, and widens her eyes.

  “All right, all right, I’ll tell you. But we’ll be heading off into more dangerous territory, you get that, right?”

  “Sure, no problem. And what…we? No, you don’t have to come…”

  “Brie, I have to come,” she huffs. “You think I’d miss a fight like this? And I doubt big bro would like me letting you go off on your own.”

  I smile, despite everything, at her confidence and conviction.

  “Thanks. I’m just…doing what Lady Orlando wanted.”

  She smirks. “Yeah, kinda…” Then she twists back towards the door. “Well come on then, what the hell are you waiting for.”

  And moments later, we’re back in the van.

  Heading west.

  10

  “Right, so where’s this hideout then?” I ask as the van curves westwards through district 5, our pace slowed once more in order to fit in should we be seen.

  “Right on the border between the west and south districts, pretty close towards the perimeter wall,” Kira says. “They’ve been operating out of there mostly, although I can’t be sure if they haven’t been found by Cromwell’s people yet.”

  “They should be so lucky,” I growl. “What else do you know about them?”

  “Hmmmm, well there’s not much to say really. Mostly they’re pickpockets, scavengers, looters. The sort of stuff that tends to stay out of the public eye so they don’t get hunted down by the City Guard, you know. But right now, they’re seeing an opening. The worst types of people come out during war.”

  “Yeah, don’t I know it. And what, they’re just Unenhanced?”

  “More or less. I heard they had a Dasher once. Made a pretty good bag-snatcher, as you can probably imagine. Not much else, though.”

  We continue working away from the more populous districts in the west, although now it’s hard to describe them as such. The place is a ghost town, the people hiding like rats. As we drive through, those that are scavenging through the streets dart away into the shadows, seeing the markings of the City Guard on the van and quickly making good their escapes.

  “You think they’re with the Voiceless,” I ask Kira, our eyes easily capable of catching sight of anyone still out on the streets.

  “Maybe, or maybe just normal people looking for food or water. Hard to know really.”

  My thought process was to snatch one up and maybe get some information off them. With Kira here, there probably isn’t any need for that, given her eclectic and all-encompassing knowledge of the city.

  I ask further questions as we go, if only to distract my mind from veering where I don’t wish for it to go. Nothing, and I mean nothing, seems to go to plan for me right now. Why couldn’t they all have just been there at the academy, waiting to pile into the van and be taken to safety?

  It’s as though the fates are smirking down at me, enjoying watching me toil and tussle. As if this is some big game to them, the entire city a sandbox for them to manipulate and design as they see fit.

  The only mercy is that the fighting has now more or less ended. Over the course of the previous night, and through this morning, all those who hadn’t gathered for the march into Inner Haven have begun to make their way there, swelling our numbers and fortifying our position.

  The only smattering of conflict seems to be from bands of Disposables and other third-party entities around the city. Little groups of rebels who aren’t quite associated with the Nameless and yet who are rallying against the doctrines of the Consortium.

  They give a lighter soundtrack to the streets than what I’ve been listening to for the last few days. Now, the chattering is rare and usually brief, often away in the distance and only occasionally sounding like it’s anywhere close.

  Of course, having Kira alongside me is an enormous advantage on that front. With her tremendous sense of hearing, she’s able to identify exactly where any gunfire is, how many weapons are being fired, what sort of weapons they are and, sometimes, whether they’re friend or foe.

  As such, she guides us right through the city without too much trouble, slowing or even stopping on occasion to call the rest of her abilities into service. Most prominent, of course, is her ability to create a picture of the streets beyond her field of view in her mind, something that is truly helpful as we avoid the larger concentrations of City Guards still holding certain positions throughout the western quarter.

  On one or two occasions, however, we have no choice but to drive past some smaller congregations. I see them set up in buildings, all battle-hardened and tasked with protecting certain streets. We drive past in our vehicular and sartorial camouflage, drawing suspicious eyes but nothing more.

  Kira explains that patrol vans like ours have been moving through these parts, and so we’re nothing out of the ordinary.

  Still, it’s a tense affair, and only grows more so as we venture further towards the perimeter and the mistier, deadlier districts that line it. Although set between the residential west and more affluent south, anywhere near the wall tends to draw a more unsavoury crowd. The Voiceless, it would seem, are certainly that, and occupy a disused train station that has many links into the underground network of rail lines beneath.

  “So they use the underlands too?” I ask as we roll up to a quiet stop on the road. Ahead, about a hundred or so metres away, the old entrance to the station awaits. There are no guards in sight.

  “In a way,” answers Kira. “They set themselves up here because it gives plenty of escape routes should they get raided, as well as lots of ways into the busier districts of the west and south. They’re pretty skilled at creeping around unseen and unheard. Often they work in teams, and communicate by sign language to stay completely silent. Hence the Voiceless.”

  “Right. And why haven’t the Nameless done anything about them?”

  “Because they’re not our problem. They’ve only ever been a nuisance, and little more, to the people. Hardly worth our time. Until it’s personal, that is,” she says, looking to me. “If your friends are there, we’ll find them, Brie.”

  We step out of the van, kitted out as City Guards and armed just the same.

  Kira takes a quick look at the entrance to the station, before turning her eyes in all directions, sniffing the air, and then pricking up her ears. I leave her to it as she works out just what might be creeping about in the shadows around us.

  “There are no City Guards or Con-Cops nearby,” she says. “Looks like they’re giving the station a wide berth.”

  “That doesn’t sound good,” I remark. “I thought you said these Voiceless didn’t have Enhanced with them.”

  “They don’t really. Not as far as I know. I’d say they’re being ignored because they’re actually a useful tool for Cromwell. I mean, think about it, these thieves and criminals only cause more fear, right? That’s what Cromwell’s been after all along.”

  “Yeah, but right now I think our Director’s priorities have changed,” I suggest. “If he’s had use for this gang before, I doubt he does anymore.”

  “Maybe,” says Kira, “but he’s not going to waste time sending his men after them either. Like I say, they’re just a nuisance, a fly on an elephant’s hide. But whatever, we need to be quick. In, out, no messing around. OK?”

  “Sure. You’re the boss.”

  Her white teeth catch the light.

  “I like that. Usually it’s your brother giving me orders. Nice to get some payback on his little sis.”

  “Jeez, enough with the ‘little’ already.”

  “OK, equally aged sis, that better?”

  “Much.”

  With the speed of foot only people like us can manage, we turn towards the entrance to the train station once more, an
d quickly dart right for it. We’re there in mere moments, taking up position outside.

  “No guards?” I ask. “Is that normal?”

  “Brie, they’re not like us or the City Guard. They’re thieves. They thrive in secrecy, and don’t like to telegraph their whereabouts by stationing guards outside the door.”

  She begins to reach out to the wall as she speaks, laying her palm flat. Shutting her eyes, she makes use of her combined gifts, quickly getting an idea of what we’re facing. When her eyes open up again, she fills me in.

  “Two heartbeats beyond the door,” she whispers. “Another six in the main station, all in a group. Armed with knives mostly, a couple of pistols. Over a dozen more heartbeats on the basement level, widespread. Mainly kids I think, some adults. One…one is very weak, fading. I think someone’s injured. I smell blood, antiseptic, healing balms…”

  “You can tell all of that?” I ask, staring at her in bewilderment.

  She nods.

  “It’ll get clearer the closer we get. Right now, we deal with eight on the ground floor. It’s a large space, easy to manoeuvre. Do it quick, don’t kill unless you have to. Got it?”

  “Got it,” I say.

  With our pulse rifles fixed to our backs, we each pull an immobiliser from our belts. Then, moving to the front of the double doors, we look at each other, countdown from three, and kick the hell out of the wood on one.

  The doors crash open, our legs, fuelled with the super stretch given by our Dasher speed, smashing straight through and tearing away the rudimentary locks in place. Immediately, the two guards ahead turn their eyes to us in surprise and fright, before each of us jab our electric batons right into their chests.

  With a buzzing blue energy surrounding them, they both fall to the ground, stuck in whatever ridiculous position they were in when we entered.

  The commotion gives the other six thieves the briefest chance to react. It’s not enough. Spying them off to one side, gathered around a fire, we pour straight forwards without hesitation, reaching them just as knives are being drawn from sheaths and guns from old holsters.

  I go straight for one of the men with a gun. Ideally, I’d rather he didn’t get one off and alert those below. With as much speed as I can muster, I surge for him and fling my palm across the weapon as it lifts. I connect with super-speed, sending the pistol off to the right and breaking his trigger-finger along with it.

  As the man lets out a comically slow roar of pain, I send another hand – this time with fist clenched – crashing across his face. His ample cheek undulates like ripples on a pond, and his eyes do a little summersault in their sockets before going dead. He hits the deck in a brutal fashion and I turn to the next opponent.

  There’s only one left. Kira, efficient, lethal, has already immobilised the rest.

  They all tumble to the floor in strange, paralysed poses as I get to take out the last of them, sending my immobiliser right up into his neck and forcing his head to bend off at a strange angle, his face contorting into a twisted snarl of agony.

  He joins his criminal comrades on the floor, and the world comes back into normal motion.

  I let out a breath, as if I’ve just run a mile at full pace. Kira, meanwhile, is barely panting.

  Immediately, she kneels to the floor and sets down her palm. Her eyes shut and then quickly snap open.

  “No sudden movement below,” she says. “I don’t think they heard us. Two choices – use your mental tricks and read these guys’ minds, or head straight downstairs. What do you think?”

  “Straight downstairs,” I say. “I can read their minds after if I need to. Don’t want anyone getting away.”

  “Good call. OK, let’s go.”

  We move straight through the old station, a large hall with various disused shops and storefronts around the perimeter, and the now defunct platforms and tracks off in the distance ahead. Away to the side, a door leads to a set of stairs, which take us immediately into the basement level and its network of corridors and offices.

  Once more, Kira performs her trick, which, when I ask her, she calls ‘the Sight’, and informs me of the exact locations of the various people populating the floor. I’d have expected more, but I imagine that most of the gang members are out doing what they do best at a time like this.

  It appears as though there’s a collection of kids just off to the right, with the adults further down the corridor and to the left.

  “They’re better armed down that way,” I’m told. “Probably the leader.”

  “No Mrs Carmichael then?” I question. “Or Tess?”

  “Doesn’t seem like it. They’re all carrying weapons, and one has a pulse rifle. I didn’t expect to find them here.”

  I didn’t know what to expect. I just hoped. Foolishly.

  I have no time to dwell.

  “Follow me,” says Kira, leading me right, to where the kids seem to be gathered.

  Is it Abby? Nate? Are these some kids picked up from the academy, or off the street, kept here to be taught to steal to feed their masters?

  We reach the right door, and share a look. Kira whispers: “Eight kids. Three armed with knives. Five others...shackled. Various ages. Lower the setting on that.”

  She nods to my immobiliser, and I turn down the dial. Overdoing the charge with kids too young could cause heart failure.

  “Disable those armed. Ready?”

  I answer by looking at the door and she immediately opens it up. It isn’t locked, and doesn’t require any aggressive attention. We dart straight inside and my eyes immediately fall to what Kira has already seen; a small dorm room with bunk beds against brick walls, and a set of chairs up against another.

  In the chairs, five children sit, their hands locked tight to the arms and ankles to the legs, just like how I was in the High Tower. A flash of memory flares, and for a moment I see myself locked tight in that terrible place. Then, my mind clears, and I look upon the children, their eyes wrapped up behind masks, nothing for them to see but darkness.

  A couple of them are gagged too, probably to stop them whimpering. All shudder at the sound of the door opening, as if expecting something unpleasant.

  I take it all in in just a split second, and then my eyes fall on the only uncovered faces in the room. Three children stand before the shackled kids, two boys and a girl, all looking to be in their early to mid-teens.

  Two I don’t recognise. One I do.

  Brandon the Bully stands before me, his eyes taking me in as mine do his. They morph from shock to confusion at the sight of me. As far as he last knew, I was living in the High Tower, recently married to a Savant.

  Things have moved on from there…

  For a second, no one does anything. Even Kira seems to sense that it’s not her place to act. She merely stands beside me, as Brandon and I lock eyes.

  And in his, I see a coil of fear.

  “B…Brie…” he whispers. “I heard you were dead.”

  There’s a hint of malice, of uncaring in his words. But mostly, he’s completely bemused by my sudden entrance. His tone of voice tells me that. His face tells me that. The thoughts that are so clear within his mind tell me that.

  “You thought I was in the High Tower,” I say.

  He nods.

  “What are you doing here?”

  The boy to his right, a little older than him, draws a knife. The girl, about his age, does the same. Through my peripheral vision, I see Kira’s lips curl into a little grin.

  “You two don’t want to be doing that,” she says.

  The kids look to each other. They probably come to the same conclusion.

  “I’m here to find the kids,” I say sternly to Brandon. “I know the academy was raided, Brandon. I know it was you.” I steady by rage with a deep breath, and look at the tied up kids. They’re beginning to murmur now, those without gags whimpering and calling out. “Move aside,” I growl, stepping forward.

  Behind me, Kira kicks the door shut and draws out
her pistol. She aims it at the kids’ heads and cocks hers to one side, ordering them over towards the nearest bunk.

  “Take a seat,” she says.

  They nervously do as ordered, lining up like three schoolchildren being reprimanded by their teacher. I step straight for the kids and begin to whisper: “It’s OK now, it’s OK, we’re here to help you.”

  I work from the right, removing blindfolds and gags, praying that I see some kids I recognise. I do. Three of them I know, all of them from the academy, all boys of about ten or eleven captured by one of their own.

  Their eyes dance up when they see me, wet with tears of fear and relief at hearing me, seeing me.

  “It’s OK now, I’m here,” I say softly.

  The other two I don’t know, perhaps kids taken from their parents or from the streets, forced to join this despicable little outfit.

  I work to untie their hands and ankles, liberating their little frames. They quickly move off to the far wall near the door, huddling behind me as I stand up tall and turn back on Bran.

  The boy, always a chief bully, always teasing and taunting those he deemed different, now cowers as I glare at him. As my hazel eyes burn and flame, spitting out hot coals.

  I take a step forward, and all three of them shift back a little on the bed.

  Then, Bran’s voice comes pouring.

  “I didn’t mean to,” he stutters. “I…it wasn’t my fault. He made me. He made me tell him about the academy. I would never…not to Mrs Carmichael, I would never…”

  His panting, rapid-fire speech quells my rage a little. I turn to Kira, a frown settling over her eyes. I can’t tell if he’s faking it, acting this out. At least, not without reading his thoughts, hidden as his head hangs low and eyes are shielded.

  But she can.

  “Is he being honest?” I ask.

  She turns to him again, inspects him for a moment.

  “His pulse is way up. Perspiration high. Seems real enough to me.”