The First City (The Dominion Trilogy Book 3)

by Joe Hart

  The pressure behind the dam is like a colossal blade poised at its pinnacle, ready to fall any second.

  They have less than no time.

  A clamor of men’s voices overrides the shooting before even more gunfire erupts. A soldier two hundred yards to their left rises from a crouch, lifting a rocket launcher to his shoulder. He takes aim and fires.

  The RPG sizzles across the river and through the gap in the wall, slamming into the building behind it.

  Debris rains down, and a row of small boats launch into the water from their side.

  “Merrill,” Tia says from beside him. Her hand grips his shoulder.

  “Let’s move to the observatory. There’s only two men there. We can take them out and hold until it’s clear enough to cross.”

  “In what? We don’t have a boat and the water’s rising.”

  “We have to get across. We’ll find something on the shore.”

  “It’s suicide. We’ll be blown away by one side or the other. We can’t stay here, much less press forward, and you know it.”

  “No.” He focuses on the boats as they cruise toward the gap in the wall. A barrage of fire comes from the guards in the ARC and the men in the two front boats jitter in time to the beat of the bullets. The boats careen to the side, missing the structure completely.

  A tectonic rumble vibrates the ground beneath them and another massive chunk of concrete dislodges from the dam, breaking in two as it descends. The pieces send a splash up forty feet in the air, the waves nearly capsizing the closest boats.

  “Damn it, Merrill, look at me!” Tia hisses, yanking him around. Her eyes are alight with intensity. “She’s gone. It’s over. We step out into this we’re dead. And if we make it through to the ARC, that water’s coming. If we go out there we’re going to die.” Her expression softens slightly and she drops her hand away from his shoulder. “She’s gone.”

  Merrill sinks back against the house, unsure if his legs will hold him or not. A rending sensation fills him. He’s being torn asunder from within, half of him already running toward the river, the other half being pulled up the valley wall to where he knows Chelsea and his unborn child wait.

  He leans forward, giving the fighting another look. The leading boat has met the break in the wall and for some reason it seems completely wrong to him. In the next instant he knows why. Hiraku’s men shouldn’t be able to climb from the river onto the promenade surrounding the building—the gap is normally too much—but the water has risen significantly in the last ten minutes.

  The sight galvanizes his decision.

  He turns away, vision blurring the landscape of their retreat.

  “Okay,” he says hoarsely. “Okay.”

  They mark their next move, Newton going first. Almost all of Hiraku’s men are past their position, and the few they see in the distance don’t seem to notice them. Tia and Merrill follow, moving in halting spans between cover until they are outside the border of battle.

  As they climb into and out of a shallow ditch near a crumbling roadway, Merrill realizes he is whispering to himself, the words a mantra of pain he hasn’t let himself acknowledge until now. With a final look back at the ARC through the skeletal trees and decrepit houses, he says it again.

  “I’m sorry.”

  57

  Reaper strides through the security doors on the fifth level, the lights overhead flickering with another explosion.

  He walks down the hall quickly, passing each doorway without a look before hearing a new sound that overshadows the fighting outside.

  It’s a voice coming from behind the Director’s door, a soft pounding accompanying it. He reaches out his arm, bringing the bracelet he wears almost to the scanner above the number pad, but stops.

  His wife’s voice sounds shattered from yelling, but there is something else there, an unhinged quality that mirrors what’s been growing inside her for the better part of two decades. Maybe it’s been there much longer.

  Reaper slowly moves his hand to the middle of the door as Vivian falls quiet, pressing his palm there for a moment before pulling it away. He had once stepped in front of a grenade for her and wears the scars to show it, but now he can no longer protect her because there is no protecting someone from themselves.

  He walks away, leaving the renewed pounding and the cries to be freed behind him.

  Up the stairs and through the door to the roof.

  Into chaos.

  There are at least sixty people there, scattered across the helipad and between the HVAC units. Many are members of Vivian’s research and medical staff, those who have resided behind the walls in comfort for years without a true worry. Now their faces are different: drawn by terror, tear streaked, and broken. The extinction of fear isn’t a good thing, not for people, he decides, moving past the closest to him. He’s always been afraid, and the right amount of fear has served him well, kept him sharp and attentive to the risks around him. But it’s also blinded him. And now the moment he’s dreaded the most is at hand.

  One of the helicopters is priming for takeoff, its interior packed with people. Two of his men stand guard outside the door as the rotor begins to turn.

  “Sir, we’ve saved you a seat,” the closest guard yells over the gathering whir of blades, but he doesn’t stop. “Sir! Sir!”

  He feels eyes land on him, the weight palpable. He moves past them toward the catwalk stretching to the closest sniper’s nest. The metal bangs under his feet and he glances down, searching out the huge hole in the curving wall.

  A line of his men stands firing out at the invading force, their stances strong, none showing any sign of retreat. But even as he watches, three of them fall, a hail of lead cutting through their bodies in mists of red.

  He reaches the sniper’s nest. The guard who had been manning it lies dead, slumped against the surround, a gaping hole where his left eye should be. Reaper retrieves the man’s rifle from his death grip and settles it on the rampart. Below he catches sight of five boats streaming toward the gap in the wall. Two land and almost immediately pull away, their occupants fighting past the last of the guards.

  So the defenses have fallen.

  He always knew it would happen. From within or without was the only question. He had felt his own fortifications slipping over the years; his belief and duty to the cause, always bolstered by Vivian’s vision as well as his love for her, beginning to rust with time and the empty hole within he couldn’t bring himself to name.

  But now there is no reason not to. There is nothing holding him back at this final juncture, nothing keeping him from speaking of his failure and the love he wouldn’t allow himself to free.

  “Zoey,” he says, settling his eye into the scope and finding the house the security tunnel leads to. He only has to wait a few seconds before he sees her. She emerges from the side of the structure holding her daughter—his granddaughter. He had been allowed to hold the two girls shortly after their artificial births and it had been this more than anything that destroyed the last of his defenses. The guilt of what he had done over the years for the cause he’d served rushed in, drowning and crushing, leaving him with only a single course of action, the only thing honorable left for a soldier like him.

  And now the time has come to do it.

  “Run,” he says as the sound of the helicopter heightens behind him. “Run away, Zoey.”

  She does.

  She flees up a small rise onto a narrow roadway hugging the river. A quarter mile ahead the sheer drop of the cliffs surrenders to a long, diagonal cut ascending between their ranks. They need to reach it before the dam crumbles and the billions of gallons of water come rushing forward.

  Bringing his face away from the riflescope, he squints ahead of Zoey’s path before adjusting the weapon’s aim. Through the magnification he finds a pairing of men crouched behind an abandoned car. As he watches they turn their heads in her direction, no doubt alerted by the baby’s cries.

  His finger only grazes the tr
igger before the recoil nudges his shoulder.

  The first soldier topples to the ground and he fires again before the man’s compatriot can take cover. The second soldier spins in a half circle with the impact and falls as Zoey jogs into their vicinity.

  Reaper repositions himself, scanning downstream once more. Another man runs in her direction, head down, seemingly oblivious to her presence, but he will not take a chance. After a lifetime of holding up his duty as a soldier while never living up to the title of father, he will not fail her now.

  His shot takes the man in the head midstride, and he skids to a stop on his stomach, dead before he hits the ground. As Reaper gazes onward, tracing a line along the hills she’ll have to follow, the helicopter’s tone changes and without looking back he knows it has become airborne.

  Wind buffets him from its rotors, but he doesn’t turn to watch it depart. Those on board are thinking only of themselves, as they always have. Everything they pledged to and worked toward, gone the moment a threat presented itself.

  Now the future lies with the young woman running for her life along the riverbank. And his greatest regret among many is that he never got to truly know her.

  The helicopter rises and he’s about to turn to watch it flee when there is a puff of smoke from one of the boats in the river. A high whistling fills his ears and he ducks instinctively as the RPG soars over his head and connects with the tail of the aircraft.

  There is a bone-shaking boom and the tail section disconnects from the main body like a limb cut from a tree.

  The main rotor spins the cockpit and cabin out of control, dumping several of the people within onto the roof while others fall out of sight over the northern wall with clipped screams.

  Then the helicopter itself connects with the wall and rotates away and down, a trail of black smoke marking its descent. The tail section crunches into the roof, its smaller rotor detaching as it crashes.

  Reaper sees what’s about to happen and knows from years spent in conflict that there is no point in trying to move. Sometimes running is a waste of time.

  Instead he closes his eyes as the rotor pinwheels toward him across the roof.

  He’s slammed into the wall behind him and slides down it, all feeling gone from below his breastbone. But there is no pain. Not yet.

  He opens his eyes, blinking through a redness that coats his vision, then looks down at his chest.

  The rotor struck him at an angle, entering between the joint of his shoulder and neck before continuing on its way over the side of the wall. He notes enough exposed muscle and bone to confirm it won’t take long.

  His breathing isn’t painful, yet he can’t inhale fully. It’s as if something is sitting on his chest. An elephant maybe, like the one the doctor had told him would be there for a while after a terrible bout of pneumonia when he was ten. He had nearly died then, and now, so many years later, it is strange to recall the single memory of his mother’s worried eyes watching him while he lay in bed, struggling to breathe.

  As the red in his eyes begins to curdle and darken, he feels more than hears something vast give way. The entire structure trembles with its force and he wonders if his daughter and granddaughter will survive. In that moment he would like to see them safe more than anything, to watch them make it free of all this like his mother had watched him return to health.

  But then the darkness thickens, dragging his eyelids closed, and the last thing he sees is a wave of vertical gray sky shooting up to an immeasurable height and washing away the clouds.

  58

  Vivian pounds harder on the door, her voice like slivers of glass in her throat.

  Outside, between the rattle of gunfire and the muted explosions that send small shivers through the floor, there is the sound of booted footsteps. Thank God, someone heard her and is finally coming to let her out. She yells again, hammering the door for good measure even though she knows whoever it is has stopped. In a few seconds she’ll be out and will assess the situation. It can’t be nearly as bad as Zoey said.

  Zoey.

  She will have to be punished. Like any disobedient child she’ll have to learn her limitations and how far she can push her mother. Especially if she is to be trusted going forward. There will be no room for discord among them if she is to be at her side in the new world.

  Vivian’s about to start beating on the door again with her bruised hand when a confusing sound reaches her ears.

  The footsteps are leaving.

  Whoever is out there is walking away.

  For a second she’s speechless. Why wouldn’t they let her out? “Hey! I’m stuck in here! Hey!” Her voice finally breaks, turning into a dry rasp. She lowers her aching hand and stands gazing at the door as if she can see through it.

  She turns and wipes at her broken nose, sending a jolt of pain through her entire head. “That’s fine.” She steps over the Director’s body and circles his desk, lowering herself into the arrogant bastard’s chair. How many hours did he waste sitting here, pretending he was something he wasn’t?

  But he wasn’t the only one pretending, was he?

  She shakes her head. There’s no room for any more distractions now. Now is the time for focus. She concentrates on the Director’s ruined skull, wishing she would have killed him years ago. She tries to imagine how different things would have been if she had, but stops.

  Regret is a waste of time, and time is the most precious thing she has.

  No, the most precious thing you had broke your nose and left you trapped here.

  Vivian discards the thoughts, gathering a handful of papers up from the desk. They are the latest reports from the blood and DNA tests that were run on Zoey’s offspring. Everything about them is promising, especially the Beta-catenin levels.

  “Just need to gather more data. Then she’ll have to see reason,” she says under her breath, shuffling papers.

  Can’t you see she was telling the truth? She’s not like you. Her nature is completely different, and you can’t fight nature.

  Vivian shuts her eyes and takes a deep, cleansing breath that’s ruined by the whistling in her smashed nose. Focus and control. That’s all it will take to make things right again.

  There is a reference number on one of the reports associated with a notation in a recent research paper. Does she have it here? No. There had been no reason to include it for the Director since nearly all of the data went completely over his head. She’s not even sure now why she provided him with the reports. To keep up the illusion of his leadership she supposes. And how sad it is looking back and knowing he was needed as a figurehead, a fixture of purpose for those that lived beneath them simply because he was a man.

  Disgusted, she rises from the desk, carrying the reports with her as the floor does a strange shimmy under her feet. How long will it take them to sort this incursion out? There is work to be done and almost no time to do it.

  She catches herself reaching toward the scanner beside the door to let herself out. That’s right, her bracelet is gone. She’ll have to wait—

  Her head jerks around, eyes landing on the Director’s pallid outstretched wrist and the bracelet around it.

  She nearly laughs. Of course, why hadn’t she thought of that before? Vivian moves to the body, setting down the paperwork while trying to keep her feet out of the blood. All of this was just a minor hiccup in the plans. She’ll get the bracelet, then find Zoey and make her see reason. They will move forward together in the right direction and everything will fall into place.

  Vivian turns the bracelet over, looking for the clasp that holds it on like her own but sees none. The realization is like another blow to her head. In his infinite wisdom the Director had insisted on having the same bracelet design as all the rest of the staff. He’d said it would build a sense of trust and commonality among them. She curses his logic under her breath and grasps the bracelet, trying to wiggle it free. It comes to the wide part of the Director’s hand and stops, refusing to move any farther
. She tries crushing the corpse’s palm into a different shape but it’s not enough to free the bracelet.

  A tremor of rage runs through her. She yanks with both hands. The body jerks with her efforts and she grunts, bracing her feet harder against the floor. Even in death he is still hindering her, holding her back. A wordless cry leaves her as she pulls again with all her strength and feels something give.

  The bracelet comes free and she stumbles back, elation blooming inside her. She raises it to her face unable to keep from smiling.

  The bracelet’s broken band meets her gaze, the tiny wires shining and exposed inside the rubber.

  “No.” She hurries to the door, nearly tripping over the low table. With a rising panic she scans the bracelet and punches in the code.

  Nothing.

  “No!” She tries again and again, but the result is the same each time. “No, no, no, no!” She slams her fist into the door and pain explodes down her arm. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Everything is a mockery of what she’d planned. Of her hopes, her dreams.

  The gunfire.

  Explosions.

  Zoey.

  “This isn’t right,” she whispers, unable to stand anymore. She slumps to the couch, staring down at the useless bracelet. “None of this is right.”

  And as a rumble begins building around her, shaking books from the shelves and sending the furniture scattering about the room, Vivian wonders at what moment she lost control, or if she ever had it at all.

  “None of this was right,” she says as everything falls down around her and the world begins to spin.

  59

  The image of the dam hemorrhaging water hounds Zoey as she runs along the riverbank.