H.A.L.F.: The Makers

by Natalie Wright

  Alecto quickly ducked into a room on the left. Jack followed and splayed himself to the wall as Alecto had.

  “What are we doing?” he asked in a whisper.

  “Listening,” she answered.

  Jack tilted his head back, held his breath and tried to calm his rapidly beating heart. His shoulder throbbed and blood rushed in his ears. He let out the breath slowly and tried to focus.

  The walls between them muffled the voices, but Jack could make out a man’s voice. “You have me, Elizabeth. Let my children go. I’m a much bigger prize to prove to your father your worth.”

  The guy’s speaking to Lizzy Croft. Jack’s heart beat even faster.

  A young woman’s voice rang out with shrill laughter. “You, Robert? A prize?” The woman had a British accent. “I think you greatly overvalue yourself,” Lizzy Croft said.

  “I have men too, Elizabeth. You take my family, I’ll take yours. We’ll have a right bloody war. Is that what you think your father really wants on the eve of his triumph?”

  There was a slight pause and a loud screech of pain. It was a woman’s voice that cried out. Anna.

  Jack began to run to the entryway. But Alecto held him back with her arm. She was surprisingly strong for such a frail creature.

  “No. She is not dead.”

  Lizzy yelled back to Robert Sturgis. “Stop there, Robert, or they’ll shoot you and I’ll finish her. Do not presume to think you know what my father wants.”

  “I know him better than you. After all, you found out you’re a Croft only a few short years ago. I’ve been his ally and partner for all of my adult life and my father was before me. This is not how the Makers do things. We take care of the problems of our own houses. Your father left this mess to me to clean up, not you.”

  Jack’s stomach churned with bile at hearing Robert admit that he had come to do exactly what Thomas had told Jack he’d do. Kill his own son. Even though Jack was still mad as hell at Thomas for lying to him, hearing this softened him toward Thomas a bit. With a dad like that, no wonder the guy’s a lying asshat.

  Lizzy’s voice was confident and firm. “You see, that’s the thing, Robert. This is the twenty-first century, not the nineteenth. It’s about time the Makers caught up with the times. I’ll usher in a new dawn. And the chain I’m forging will have no more weak links.”

  A shot rang out and a male voice screamed in pain.

  Robert Sturgis shouted, “No!”

  Jack wasn’t about to wait another second. “What’s going on out there?”

  “Someone has been shot.”

  48

  ERIKA

  Erika stumbled out into the bright morning sun and squinted. She found her way to a weathered wooden bench positioned between two palo verde trees. The branches were bare, the tiny leaves covering the rocky dirt. A small, pale yellow butterfly landed on the green-barked tree, its branch so smooth it looked like it was green skin.

  She sat down on the bench, pulled her knees up and rested her head on them. She let the silent tears fall and occasionally sniffed. Birds chirped and flies buzzed, but otherwise it was a beautiful, warm, quiet late fall day. It was the kind of day that made desert dwellers gloat about living there.

  Erika watched a tiny baby lizard dart across the concrete path. It stopped on the other side in the dirt along the edge and did push-ups. It whipped its tail back and forth then scurried along, oblivious to the huge tear in the fabric of the universe. Well, in Erika’s universe anyway.

  A long shadow fell across the concrete. She didn’t bother to look up.

  “Want company?” Ian asked.

  His voice was music to her ears. It was weak and softer than usual, but it was Ian’s and he was alive and out of bed.

  Under normal circumstances she was always happy to spend time with her best friend. But in that moment, she honestly didn’t want company. She wanted to ball up her small fists and punch something – anything – and pound until her hands bled. She wanted to scream until her throat was raw and she could no longer make a sound. And she wanted to run from the never-ending nightmare that her life had become. To get on her bike, pull back the throttle and drive until she ran out of road.

  But she didn’t say any of that to Ian. He was still recovering from the nasty bug that had nearly killed them both. He should have been in bed, but he’d wheeled his IV bag with him and hovered beside her, covered only in a thin blue gown and a pair of hospital-issue socks. How can I say no to him?

  Erika scooted over and patted the bench next to her. “Sure.” It didn’t come out as convincing as she’d wanted it to be.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. Really. Sit before you fall over.”

  “Like my new clothes? It’s all the rage here in Ajo, AZ.” He struck a model pose and sucked in his cheeks to accentuate his cheekbones. He didn’t need to suck in his cheeks. Already high and prominent, his cheeks had become positively angular since that fateful night they had struck out into the desert with Jack.

  The look of him made Erika’s stomach churn with guilt and pain for him. But she forced a fake half smile and said, “Lovely. You always were the trendsetter.”

  Ian winced as he sat.

  “You okay?”

  “Not really. But they say I will be. Eventually. The real question is, how are you?”

  “They say I’m fully recovered. A bit dehydrated and underfed, but I wasn’t as sick as you or for as long.”

  “That’s not what I meant. I know about your mom.” Ian held his arm out and wrapped it around Erika’s bony, quaking body.

  She cried into his shoulder until his hospital gown was soaked. Ian cried until the top of Erika’s head was wet.

  Erika sniffed and wiped her face with her arm. “I’m alone, Ian.”

  “You’ll never be alone.” He hugged her more tightly. “You’re stuck with me.”

  She managed a chuckle. “I know. But she was … I’m a freakin’ orphan, Ian.”

  “I know you’ll miss her. She was your only mom. But you’ll be okay, Erika. You’ve been taking care of yourself a long time now.”

  As usual, Ian had the sum of it. She’d gotten used to being alone. It had never been a problem for her. It was more that now she had no chance to ever know … What? A real family? A sober mom? So many possibilities died with her mom. I’ll never know what could have been with her.

  Ian asked, “What will you do now?”

  Erika began to speak but realized she had nothing to say. Her anger at life had been the dam that held back her tears. Her anguish had broken the dam, and now she didn’t seem to be able to stop the steady flow of tears.

  “That’s just it, Ian. I don’t know what to do.” Her words came out between choked sobs.

  Ian pulled her to him again. She rested her head on his bony chest as his emaciated arms circled her. Arms that used to be strong and solid. The memory of how he used to be – how he used to feel when he held her – made her cry even harder. “We’ve lost so much.”

  “Let it out. That’s it. Let it go.”

  Erika snuffled. “The thing is, my whole life has been defined by my relationship with my mom, you know?” She could feel Ian nod. “Like most of my life has been about getting the hell away from her.”

  “I know,” he said as he stroked her hair.

  “Then, while we were at Tro, all I could think was how when I got back, I’d help her. I was going to take her away from here and start over. I was going to save her, Ian, and I failed.”

  Fresh tears splashed onto Ian’s wet chest and choked sobs escaped her lips. Ian patiently stroked her hair and let her cry it out. Her throat was sore and her lips parched despite the liquid that ran down her face. “What am I going to do now?”

  “You’re going to do what you’ve always done.”

  “Yeah? What’s that?”

  “You’re going to cowboy up and fight.”

  Erika sniffed. “I don’t feel like I’ve got any fight left in me.”
<
br />   “Maybe not right now you don’t. But I know you. After some rest, you’ll channel this sadness back into anger and action. And you’ll be pissed as hell at the assholes that did this to me and to Jack and to your mom.”

  “And Dr. Randall says if we don’t get Tex out of here, he’ll be taken again and to a situation worse for him than it was at A.H.D.N.A.” Erika’s tears were already drying at the thought of the Makers getting their hands on Tex. She wiped her face with the back of her hand. “I’ll get mad. Then what?”

  “I don’t know what you’ll do exactly. But I know you’ll fight for us – for all of us – and for our survival.”

  “I’m not exactly a save-the-world kind of person. I dislike most people, remember?”

  “Yeah. Maybe. But you love some of the people. A lot. And you’re not the kind to sit back and watch countless people suffer through this horrible virus without lifting a finger.”

  When he put it that way, she knew he was right. There was no way she could just ride her motorcycle into oblivion and ignore the fact that so many people could die from the Conexus virus, as Ian almost had.

  Still, she had always lived by the rule of each tending to themselves. She stayed out of people’s business and was happy for people to stay out of hers. Erika took care of Erika, and she expected others to take care of themselves.

  “I’m no Florence Nightingale, Ian. I’m a loner. You know that.”

  “So don’t look at it as saving the world. For now, just save me.”

  Erika raised her head from his chest and looked into his face. His dark chocolate brown eyes were rimmed in red and there were dark circles beneath them. “I thought … you said you’d be okay.” Fear of losing Ian welled up inside her again.

  “Oh, I’ll be okay. But I’m not talking about the virus. There’s something else coming, Erika. Something they’re not telling us. And Tex knows about it. At least he knows something about it.”

  The feeling of betrayal she’d once had toward Tex came over her again like a dark cloud rolling across the desert floor, ready to burst with lightning and thunder. “Tex knows about it – whatever it is? Are you saying that Tex was in cahoots with the Conexus after all?”

  “No, no. I’m not talking about the stupid Conexus. It’s something else. I don’t know what exactly. But while I was visiting him and Dr. Randall, military brass came in to see him. It was all whispers and hush. But they were trying to interrogate him. They asked me to step outside and wait. I put my ear to the door of course and tried to listen as best I could. I didn’t hear much. But I swear one of them asked him about the ship entering our solar system.”

  Ian and Erika knew the Conexus were from a future Earth, so they knew that if a ship was entering the solar system, it couldn’t be the little grey bastards. “This doesn’t make sense. If a ship is entering our solar system and it’s not Conexus, why would Tex know anything about it?” Erika asked.

  “I don’t know. Like I said, I couldn’t hear much. And they weren’t there long before Dr. Randall brought in another doc and they told them that he wasn’t recovered enough to speak to them. I never did hear Tex talk. He must still be very weak.”

  Erika’s head spun. She’d just lost her mom and was trying to wrap her head around being orphaned before her eighteenth birthday. Her mind was still processing that her world was being rocked by a deadly virus the Conexus unleashed. And now a spaceship from another world was entering their cosmic neighborhood? In the grand scheme of the entire universe, they were practically knocking on the door.

  And where is Jack?

  “I wonder if the military guys were really military or from the Makers?” Erika asked.

  Ian squinted at her. “Who?”

  Erika filled Ian in on all that Dr. Randall had confided in her about the Makers and their plans for the planet. The more Erika told him, the paler he got.

  “I’d hoped to wait a few days to take Tex out of here, but if they’re badgering him now, I probably won’t be able to wait that long. Do you think you’ll be strong enough to come with us?”

  Ian shuffled his foot in the sand and avoided her eyes.

  “Ian?”

  “I can’t go, Erika. I need to stay and look after my family. And I volunteered to help Dr. Montoya. My blood has antibodies in it. If I donate blood that can help her in her work to develop an antiviral, then that’s what I need to do. Plus, since I’ve already had the virus, I can help take care of the sick people here.”

  The first real smile Erika had had in weeks spread across her face. She would miss Ian so much her heart would ache. But his choice reiterated to her why she loved him so much.

  “I’ll miss you,” she said.

  “You too. But hey, it’s not like we’ll never see each other again.”

  He looked down into her eyes and a tear came to the edge of his eye. Unspilled and shining there like a small jewel.

  A cloud passed over them and the light breeze made Erika’s skin prickle.

  “You look exhausted. You should go find an empty bed. You’ll wake up with a clear head and the energy to fight again.”

  Erika smiled. “What would I do without you?”

  “Be a walking fashion disaster. Oh, wait, you already are.”

  “Back at ya.”

  They both laughed a tired laugh. It felt good even if it was mostly out of habit. Ian pulled her to him again and she let him. She rested in his arms a few minutes more then helped him back to bed. He was practically asleep before his head hit the pillow.

  “Good-bye my friend,” she whispered as she kissed his forehead. “We’ll see each other again. Someday.”

  Erika closed the door softly on her way out and hoped that what she’d whispered to Ian was true.

  49

  JACK

  Someone in the entryway room had been shot. “Anna,” Jack whispered.

  Alecto closed her eyes for a few seconds then blinked them open. “Anna is alive. We must act now. There are at least ten humans in that room.”

  “Three are the Sturgises and friendly to us.”

  Alecto nodded once. “The rest are hostiles. I do not have the strength yet to kill all of them. I will attempt to befuddle their minds, allowing you the opportunity to terminate them with your weapon. Retrieve one of their weapons and put it in the hands of Mr. Sturgis. I will focus my attention on the Croft woman.” She glided out of the room and was down the hall before Jack had fully entered the hallway.

  Jack kept his back close to the wall as he followed after Alecto. The hallway opened up to the spacious main living area. Just inside the entryway, two guards stood behind a tall, fit man in a neatly tailored navy blue suit. The guards pointed their rifles at the man in the suit.

  Alecto was only a few feet in front of Jack, and she stopped short of showing herself. She stood perfectly still and closed her eyes.

  The two guards that Jack could see swayed on their feet. One dropped his gun as his hands shot to his temples to ease the icepick of pain that Jack knew Alecto had planted there.

  Jack stepped away from the wall and moved a few feet closer. He planted his feet, held his breath and squinted through the sights. He targeted the man who had dropped his gun. He was still hunched over. Jack held the gun as steady as he could and fired, aiming for the man’s midsection.

  The shot was silent and, to Jack’s surprise, hit his target. The man staggered forward from the pain of the bullet that had lodged in his hip. Jack had tried to hit him in the chest and missed, but he was relieved that the bullet hadn’t strayed so far as to hit Mr. Sturgis.

  Jack wasted no time thinking. He lined up his sights again and fired at the other guard he could see. He pulled the trigger but missed. The bullet hit a large vase on a pedestal across the room.

  He jogged to the other side of the hall and ducked against the wall. From this vantage point he could see the entire large room.

  Robert struggled with the guard nearest him, trying to wrest his rifle away from him. The
other guard that Jack had shot was advancing on Robert from behind.

  And about ten feet further into the room, Anna sat on a chair. She was gagged. Her blonde hair hung in ratty tendrils around her heart-shaped face. One eye was swollen almost shut and ringed by a bruise. The other side of her face had a long gash slashed across it, including her eye. Blood poured down her face and had soaked her shirt red. She was twisting her wrists, trying to free them from the ropes that bound them.

  Lizzy Croft stood behind Anna. She held Anna by the hair with one hand and had what looked like a hunting knife at Anna’s throat. There was a thin scrape of red across Anna’s throat. She yelled at her guards. “Stop him. What’s wrong with you?”

  In a chair beside Anna was Thomas. He, too, was tied to the chair. His head was slumped forward. Beneath him was a pool of dark blood staining the otherwise spotless marble floor.

  Lizzy sounded panicked by Alecto’s telekinetic attack on her men. “Stop, creature. I command you to protect me. You will obey and stop this.”

  Jack lunged forward to help Mr. Sturgis. He kicked the guard he’d shot in the side where he’d taken the bullet. The man fell to his knees and cried out in agony. Jack easily pulled the gun from the man’s hands and quickly handed it to Robert.

  Alecto must have been weakening. The guards were straightening. They no longer squinted and gripped their heads from the pain. One of them asked, “You want us to shoot her?”

  “No,” Lizzy said. “We can’t kill it. My father needs it.”

  Robert Sturgis took the rifle Jack handed him and promptly turned it on the guard he’d been fighting. He sent a barrage of bullets into the guy’s chest at nearly point-blank range. Blood sprayed across Robert’s expensive suit, and tiny droplets of blood covered Jack’s face.

  Robert turned the gun on Lizzy. He advanced toward her and Jack followed behind him. He hoped Robert would occupy Lizzy so that Jack could help Anna get free and check on Thomas.

  One of the guards next to Thomas moved his gun toward Robert. But the head of the Sturgis clan had fast reflexes. He shot that guard in the chest. The guard fell to the floor, but the guard on the other side of Thomas shot at Robert. Bullets whizzed, glass exploded, but the man was a lousy shot. He missed Robert by a mile.