Fallen Angels (Dystopian Child Prodigy SciFi) (The Unmaker Series Book 2)

by Casey Herzog

  Fallen Angels

  The Unmaker Series

  Book 2

  Casey Herzog

  ***

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  Copyright © 2017 by Casey Herzog

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the author’s permission.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously, and are not to be constructed as real. Any resemblance to persons living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Published in the United States of America

  Other Books By Casey Herzog

  The Unmaker Series

  Tower of Ayia (Prequel) - FREE

  The Lucid Dreamer (Book 1)

  Johnny Spaceway Series

  Johnny Spaceway and the Hooded Assassin (Book 1)

  Terminus Project Series

  Terminus Project: Mars

  Want a free book? Casey Herzog is giving away a free copy of Tower of Ayia, the prequel to The Lucid Dreamer (no strings attached). This book is exclusive to his VIP Reading Team.

  >>>Click Here<<<

  PROLOGUE

  Rogue

  The soldier sniffed the air, an old habit he’d acquired since the early days of the war. To one with such an acute sense of smell as he, it was easy to perceive the presence of the aliens and their technologies if he concentrated on catching the whiff of ozone, a by-product of alien laser generators and ship motors. Until the present day, his nose had never failed him.

  Rogue — the codename he’d gone by for half a decade now — caught the scent he’d sought and nodded to himself before turning towards the man standing behind him.

  “We are close, no doubt about it,” he said. The other operative stared blankly, attempting to repeat the first man’s method of detection, but failing. “Don’t bother,” Rogue said, “You’ll never pick it up.”

  They were both in the depths of an abandoned and long-buried military complex that stood practically in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by miles of empty wasteland. It had been used as a site for nuclear testing and biological trials, but it had been one of the first targets to fall to the Outsider weapons when the war broke out.

  So how, Rogue wondered, had Coalition forces caught the powerful signal from within its dusty walls? It hadn’t been more than a larger-than-usual peak, a reading that could have easily been missed, but the Coalition, mankind’s most powerful military force in this post-apocalyptic world, was thorough even at its sloppiest. They had made inquiries and sent a force to investigate.

  If only they had moved more quickly, then maybe I wouldn’t have arrived before their own people did. Rogue had fought and killed enough for the Coalition. Enough for a lifetime, even. He had seen the corruption within the ranks, the erosion of the original dream the founders once held: to save humanity, not to enslave it and hold it hostage with a gun to its head like the current Coalition did. He and his fellow operatives were on this mission of their own accord. Not for the first time, the tan-skinned soldier with the dark, salt-and-peppered hair thought of another man he had gone into enemy territories with on many successful assignments. A true comrade, a dependable soldier who would have had his back ten times out of ten. It doesn’t matter. He’s gone now.

  “Let’s go.” Rogue pulled his sniper rifle around him and descended from their vantage point. They stood on the second floor of a building on the exterior borders of the complex. It was basically an entire underground city fit with housing, research stations, control rooms and even leisure areas for the scientists and engineers and their families, who had most likely come all this way with them. “Shackle,” the operative hissed at his companion, “Turn that off, please. You’re going to get us killed.”

  The younger man hesitated, sighed, and then tapped a switch. Since they’d arrived, he’d been watching a constant flow reading on a portable handheld device that continuously hummed quietly. It was Shackle’s own version of Rogue’s nose, an item used to catch energy registries and determine the presence of Outsider technology. From the moment he turned it on it hadn’t caught anything.

  “I’m not sure why you’re so certain of them being here, Rogue. My device showed no sign of them.”

  “Which is why I asked you to turn it off. It’s doing nothing other than giving them a means to detect us. They’re here.” The two operatives descended onto a dusty, rubble-stricken street that passed through the underground city. Rogue made a hushing motion with his finger. The younger operative was starting to feel frustrated.

  What is he so cautious about? There is literally nothing down here, he thought. This fool has lost hi—

  The first of them strode out of a building in the distance, and Shackle swallowed hard, freezing in place. He shot a glance at Rogue, who was grinning victoriously and staring back as if gloating: See?

  The creature straightened as it stretched its long, powerful arms and arched its broad back. There was no armor covering its grayish form; the alien’s muscles moved clearly under its skin as it continued its slow walk to wherever it was going.

  Shackle needed no more proof to know his fellow operative knew exactly what he was doing, and he dropped his pretensions to take control of the mission over the more experienced man.

  “What next?” he mouthed to his companion.

  Rogue made a pushing signal. We go in, it meant. Then he made a knife across throat motion.

  The latter didn’t need an explanation.

  They had gone too far in, surely. Shackle kept glancing at Rogue, his worry increasing with each passing second, despite his initial confidence in the man. They had passed the point where they’d seen the alien, yes, but they had also passed many other points where they could have stopped for a cautious breather. More of the Outsiders had appeared, crossing their path just yards away, or operating consoles and terminals in nearby rooms. Where at first the insides of the complex’s buildings had been dusty and empty, now that the men breached the inner rings of the city, the alien technology was widespread and obvious.

  There can only be a truly terrible fate for us if we’re detected. Outsider armor and technologies were designed to self-destruct or disable themselves on a whim — few if any humans had been this close to functioning alien equipment, and the extraterrestrial race was nothing if not vengeful against their human counterparts whenever they felt exposed or insulted.

  “Haven’t you seen enough?” Shackle asked Rogue, feeling the urge to leave as soon as they could.

  “No, lad. If you wish to leave and wait for me outside this place, go ahead. I must discover the nature of their operation here. Something is happening; I can feel it. Something huge.” True enough, there were an abnormally large number of aliens within the walls of the massive cavern. They worked hard, implying a necessity to accomplish something urgent. Shackle cursed himself for feeling so committed to the man and the mission, but he stayed anyway.

  They left the alleys and streets they had been sneaking along and finally reached the side door of a larger building in the central dist
rict. It was the major hub of activity in the entire complex, a structure they had been watching the aliens enter and exit from in numbers for the past few minutes.

  It was the true make-or-break moment for their mission if they entered. And enter it we shall, apparently, Shackle thought with annoyance as he watched the other operative simply open the door and step inside the building without stopping for a careful look.

  Shackle was a technology officer for the Coalition, but he had been drifting for a long period now, often finding himself at odds with his commanders. He had been the one at his base’s terminals when the reading had come in, a spike in the normal values as he’d studied the grid of practically empty space on his particular assigned sector. There were typically big things happening on his side of the sector map, but usually in the gang-infested cities to the west, not in the desert wastelands of the northeast. When he’d caught sight of the registry, he’d been moments from reporting it to his superiors, only to delay the thought long enough to consider an offer he’d been made just a few weeks before. An ex-Coalition figure, now revealed to be Rogue, had been looking for something below ground, and he’d pay big for any information related to what he needed.

  Shackle hadn’t just asked for the payment — no, that would have been cowardly — he made the deal in such a way that Rogue was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Accept me as a mission companion, or the Coalition finds out about my discovery before you do.

  Now, though, Shackle wished he’d just left someone else to investigate. Field work was definitely his thing, but Rogue possessed an approach that bordered on recklessness. Shackle had expected to get back home alive and in one piece once they were done, but it was looking more and more unlikely with each passing minute.

  Unbeknownst to the younger man, however, Rogue had already abandoned all hope. They were most likely going to die within these underground walls, but one thing was for sure…

  He was going to make their deaths count.

  The dark corridors of the alien-made structure went on for long expanses, the creatures carrying light protective gear for the most part; their faces and heads were covered by protective medical equipment, as if they were avoiding contamination. But for what? Rogue wondered. He hadn’t seen an enemy facility like this for years, and it made him uncomfortable. If he had to sacrifice his life to bring this place down, he would. It was clearly vital to their war efforts…

  Rogue’s thoughts trailed off as he watched an Outsider push out of a room with a floating metal tray in its grip, leading it towards another area of the building. On top of the cold, flat surface was a child: a human child, bathed in a thick ectoplasm as if it had just been pulled from its mother’s womb.

  Rogue’s blood chilled. Human experiments?

  They edged further into the corridor, and the operatives caught sight of the room from which the alien had exited. It was full of metal capsules mounted on life-support systems. It was precisely at that moment that both Rogue and Shackle made their realization. The Outsiders are cloning humans.

  At that same moment, a voice spoke up from just behind them.

  “That’s far enough, my friends,” the young man’s voice said cheerfully.

  And then the chaos began.

  PART I – Unwanted Attention

  CHAPTER ONE

  Comeback

  Andrew waited on the plaza, sitting on a bench as several Dreamers lay nearby on the soft grass around the tall willow. The delicate scent of roses reached him, and a hummingbird flitted nervously from flower to flower, bringing him a sensation of serenity that no other place in the world could. He was the lord of these parts, and he knew it — after his demonstration of power, no other group leader had dared challenge him since his arrival almost a year ago. His group had acquired members more quickly than any other in the University’s history. Nevertheless, the young man was never quite content and always wanted more.

  The Lucid Dreamers had been a simple idea at first, a fantasy in his young mind he’d carried for a long time before discovering the University. He’d long realized the power his ability could give him, but had only been able to use it on those of his fellow community members who had allowed it. Andrew — or King, as he was better known — had mostly lived a comfortable life, despite the war and the fallout that followed, thanks to the fact that he’d been a member of the higher echelon of society and had received all the protection and commodities necessary to survive, and even live comfortably, in a protected compound during the times of conflict. It had simultaneously been a blessing and a curse: on one hand, he had been able to receive medical treatment, food and clean water for as long as he’d needed, but on the other, Andrew had not learned the true perils of the outside world.

  It hadn’t been until they’d made contact with a seemingly harmless community nearby that everything had fallen apart. Trading had begun at first, a friendly exchange of then luxury goods, such as frozen seafood and candy, for guns, but soon the other faction learned just how much Andrew’s people had needed the weapons and they drew their own conclusions. Why give them guns for food when we can just take the food with our guns, he could imagine their logic had been. The ensuing raid ended badly for both parties in terms of the dead and wounded, though it had taken Andrew’s intervention and first attempt at a massive outburst of power to turn the battle in his own community’s favor.

  He had been forced to leave the burning compound, his parents and sister dead in the battle, and the few survivors fighting over the scraps that remained. Andrew had killed his first man during his escape: his father’s former bodyguard, who had attempted to capture and sell him to the mutant herders.

  Andrew shivered as the memories of his knife punching through the man’s flesh and the hot blood gushing out onto his hands filled his mind once more. It hadn’t ended there either. The following months would teach Andrew the shocking truths of the outside world his pampered existence had not allowed him to see. He had been forced to refine his gifts such that he now could say he not only knew how to use them, but excelled at it…

  The teenager heard his name being called and slowly lifted his gaze from the stone floor.

  “King,” Aaron said insistently. From the look on the lad’s face, he had been calling him for a while now.

  Andrew shook off the memories and flashed a smile. Aaron was the kind of boy who looked like he had rarely encountered the danger of the outside world in the way that Andrew had, but Aaron was smart and cautious nonetheless. Andrew considered him the second-in-command of their organization, and in time would duly reward him with an official position for his loyalty and service.

  “Chameleon.” The other boy’s moniker had stuck, despite his initial protests. “Is he back on board, then?”

  Aaron licked his lips nervously. He had heard the excitement in his leader’s voice and couldn’t find a way to break the news to him.

  “He didn’t even think about it…” Aaron was nervous, as if he expected to be struck down by Andrew. “He dismissed me as soon as I conveyed your apology and proposed he rejoin us.” He stared at King, waiting for the boy’s reaction.

  The smile faded and his mouth tightened. A slight nod followed, although there was anger behind the simple expression. Andrew did not take rejection well, as several people had learned during his lifetime.

  “Really, now?” He shook his head and smiled bitterly. “Does the child have a new group to look up to? Someone else who has offered him greater benefits than we have?” The question was sarcastic; no first-term student would be able to do better than being a Lucid Dreamer.

  “No. I think the attack has made him go solo, but that’s just my theory.”

  Andrew simply blinked at Aaron before tapping the bench with his fingers and closing his eyes. He breathed deeply and counted down from five, calming himself in an attempt to make a controlled decision.

  Finally, he opened them again and looked up at Aaron.

  “The healer will learn the error of h
is mistakes. Do not approach him again.” He stood and lifted his voice so that all of the plaza could hear. “If he is not with us, then he is against us. He will regret this. I will make sure of it.”

  And with that said, Andrew stood up and left, already making plans in his head.

  Dante limped out of the infirmary wing and leaned on a cold wall, breathing hard as he looked out at the corridors stretching out in all directions. The wound still hurt, despite his gifts. It was clear that it would continue to for some time.

  He had no idea where he was, but he had successfully escaped the sick room at the very least. His visitors had made it a tolerable experience, but the healer was sick of lying around in bed and waiting to recover. Dante had evaded the nurses with ease by walking out as naturally as he could during their change of shifts and avoiding letting out any gasps or winces that could give him away as a patient. It was certainly effective, and ten minutes later he’d emerged from the sick rooms with a sigh of relief.

  “Now what?” he asked himself. The three corridors disappeared into the distance and turned into entirely new spaces, showing no sign of what lay beyond. He needed to find his way back to the quarters. Of course, he had officially lost his own space in the Lucid Dreamers’ area when he declined to return to them, but he’d cross that bridge once he reached it. “Screw it,” he said finally, and continued down the corridor that led straight ahead.