by Kyla Stone
The soldiers leveled plasma guns, their eyes hard above the clear masks fixed over their noses and mouths. They wore helmets and sharp, charcoal-gray uniforms with a patch over the right shoulder—a white triangle with a rippling American flag behind a sword.
She blinked hard. Looked again. The emblem was the same. These were Coalition security agents.
This was exactly what her mother feared. But it didn’t matter now. The only option was to obey orders. She felt the cold metal of the charm bracelet against her skin beneath her clothes. It gave her no comfort.
A figure in a hazmat suit stepped forward to meet them. Amelia glimpsed nut-brown hair and a round, feminine face through the hazmat visor. “Nice and slow, please reveal your right wrist,” the woman said to Amelia. She held a wand-like object in one hand and a holopad in the other. “We need to verify your identity.”
Amelia carefully pulled back the sleeve of her jacket and tugged down her glove. Her wrist was slim and pale, mapped with thin blue veins. “I don’t have a Vitalichip. Neither do my friends.”
The soldiers were standing outside the ten-foot infection radius, but they still tensed. Their fingers tightened on the triggers of their pulse guns. Amelia felt the same tension coiling inside her own body.
The woman scrutinized her suspiciously. “We cannot immediately determine your infection status without a chip. Without a specified infection status, you are automatically registered as potentially hostile under safety regulation code 221.5. I am required to inform you that 99.6% of persons seeking asylum are unqualified and refused entry. I am authorized to direct you to the nearest regional FEMA medical center for help.”
Silas snorted. “We need FEMA like we need a shot in the head.”
Micah gave him a warning look.
“We aren’t interested in FEMA,” Amelia said evenly. “We need to speak to someone in authority inside the Sanctuary.”
“Identify yourself and state your intentions.” The woman swiped something into her holopad and held it out for Amelia to scan her thumbprint. Amelia knew the drill. A retinal scan would follow. The two biosignatures combined would confirm her identity.
Her heart slammed against her rib cage. This was it. Whatever waited for them—salvation or destruction—it started now.
She peeled off her glove and pressed her thumb to the glowing digital handprint on the scanner. Her name would either save them or doom them. There was only one way to find out.
“I have information of utmost importance to national security,” she said in a loud, clear voice. “My name is Amelia Black.”
9
Gabriel
“Stop moping around, Rivera,” Cleo said to Gabriel. She finished loading supplies in the back of the transport and slammed the door shut. “Let’s move.”
It was just past dawn, the orange glow of the sun barely creeping above the tree line. The sky above them was still the deep purplish-gray of a bruise. Gabriel wrapped his scarf tighter around his neck. His cheeks and ears stung in the chilly air.
Amelia, Micah, and Silas had left yesterday. Jamal Carter had returned last night, reporting that he’d dropped them off just outside the perimeter without incident.
Now, the New Patriots were departing on their mission to secure the Phantom. They took two armored, all-terrain Jeeps. General Reaver, Colonel Reid, and several other Patriots took the first transport. Cleo, Gabriel, Jamal, Cerberus, and two other Headhunters rode in the second vehicle. Gabriel rode shotgun.
Cleo punched in the GPS coordinates to the town nearest the location Cerberus had given them and sat back, letting the auto-drive sensors take over. “Pay attention,” she said to Gabriel. “The auto functions get a bit jittery from all these hills.”
The dirt and gravel roads were mostly clear. Up here in the mountains, they weren’t obstructed by thousands of abandoned vehicles.
Thoughts of Micah and Amelia filled his mind. Anxiety roiled through him. What were they doing now? Had they made it inside? Were they safe? He tried to focus on something else. “Does your mother come on every mission?”
“Only the most critical ones,” Cleo said. “The Phantom is a game-changer. She wants to see it for herself—and ensure we don’t mess anything up,” she added with an edge of resentment.
She glared at Cerberus in the rear-view mirror. He was a hulking giant hunched in the back seat, his meaty arms crossed over his chest, the white wolf pelt bristling across his shoulders. He looked for all the world like some futuristic Viking lost in time.
“You better not be lying to us,” she spat, “or I’ll gut you myself.”
“You’re welcome to try.” Cerberus sneered. “It would be my pleasure to school you in the proper attributes of womanhood.”
Cleo gave a mirthless laugh. “You Headhunters are probably thrilled the world’s gone to hell. You can bring us all back to the stone ages with you.”
Cerberus shot her a stony-faced glare and refused to answer.
Gabriel clung to the side door as the Jeep roared over the pitted, overgrown access road. They swerved around a fallen tree blocking the road, the vehicle angling dangerously near the edge of a steep ridge. Two hundred feet below them, a glittering river twisted at the bottom of the gorge.
With his other hand, Gabriel grasped the butt of his holstered gun. He had his handgun, his rifle, and his hunting knife. Plenty of weapons to defend himself—and to kill. He felt Cerberus’s presence behind him, a dangerous, barely restrained predator. He loathed every second of it. The Headhunter was unarmed at present, compliments of General Reaver’s command, but Gabriel didn’t doubt the man was deadly with his bare hands.
Gabriel was dangerous, too. Nadira’s scrap of blue cloth burned like a brand in his pocket. Silently, he vowed to kill Cerberus at the earliest opportunity, Cleo and her mother’s orders be damned. Then, maybe some of the guilt he wore like clanking chains around his neck would fall away, finally freeing him. Maybe.
The hours passed in silence. He kept his gaze on the forest whipping by outside the windows, his jaw clenched. He tried not to think too much about Amelia and Micah heading for the Sanctuary. But he couldn’t dispel the tightness in his chest, the terrible helplessness washing over him. He was separated from the people he loved at exactly the time they most needed his protection.
But neither Micah nor Amelia was helpless. Micah had grown stronger, both physically and mentally. He could fight when he had to. He would kill to defend their people. Gabriel didn’t doubt his brother’s will or his loyalty.
He didn’t doubt Amelia’s determination, either. She wasn’t the same girl from the Grand Voyager. She hadn’t been weak then, but she’d lived in shame and fear for so long she didn’t recognize her own power. Now she did. She was a force to be reckoned with—strong-willed, confident, beautiful.
The memory of their kiss flushed through him. Maybe he shouldn’t have done it. He’d told her he wasn’t sorry. And he wasn’t. He would never force her to do anything she didn’t want to do. But some part of him had whispered that he might never see her again, that he’d regret this chance not taken for the rest of his life.
Whatever happened next, he wanted Amelia to know he loved her. Even though she couldn’t love him back…he would always love her.
The transport shuddered to a halt. Cleo shoved the door open and jumped out. “We’re here.”
“We’re in the middle of nowhere,” Gabriel said.
Cleo unloaded a large, industrial-sized hovercart and looked at Cerberus. “How far?”
Cerberus just shrugged with a lazy, predatory smile. “Soon.”
A three-mile hike over rough, rugged terrain later, they crested a small hill to find a mid-sized town sprawling in the distance. A hundred yards to the north stood a huge concrete block of a building topped with a blue metal roof. Gabriel recognized the big-box store brand emblazoned in bright, candy-apple red on the front of the building.
“It was a restock warehouse for commerce drone delivery,” Cerb
erus explained.
With their guns in the low and ready position, they cleared the area. They found several dead bodies and a few infected wildlife—which they promptly dispatched—before entering the warehouse through a side entrance. The lock had already been bashed, the door pried open and squeaking on its hinges.
Gabriel flicked on the light attached to the scope of his rifle. The towering shelves were ransacked. Plastic wrap and torn cardboard littered the cement floor. He kicked aside several empty, discarded boxes.
The stench of rotting flesh filled his nostrils. He adjusted his mask over his mouth and nose. The others did the same. It did nothing to staunch the foul, rancid odor, but he hoped it would protect him from any bodies infected with the Hydra virus.
A rat squealed and scurried out from beneath an empty beer crate. Gabriel shot it with a shudder, memories of the rat-infested sewer flooding through him. “Be careful of those things. They’re cunning little beasts.”
“Back here,” Cerberus said. He led them through the labyrinthine rows of shelves to a metal door in the back wall. Brown streaks smeared the door. Dried blood. Four bodies dressed in army fatigues and combat gear slumped in front of it. They were bloated, decomposing. No blood leaked from their eye sockets. Their veins weren’t a dark topography spidering across their rotting, corpse-white skin.
They weren’t infected.
“They were all knifed or shot,” Cerberus said. “Two of them in the back. We dragged them against the door to discourage looters. Figured most folks would decide it wasn’t worth the risk to scavenge an office when there was plenty to plunder out here.”
Jamal covered his masked mouth with the sleeve of his jacket. Coughing, he used a crowbar to push and prod the bodies out of the way. He pried open the locked door. Gabriel and two others cleared the office quickly.
The rest of the New Patriots crowded into the office.
It was unremarkable. Two integrated computer desks, a holoscreen, a couple of moldy-smelling sofas, a dusty coffee bar, an employee-only bathroom in the back.
“Here we go!” Jamal gave a low whistle as he crouched behind one of the sofas.
The Phantom was hidden between the sofa and the wall. It was huge, about six feet long, and sinister. It reminded Gabriel vaguely of a gun-shaped torpedo.
“Someone was lugging it around,” Cerberus said. “Ex-airmen who took it from their abandoned base. They stopped here for supplies, got ambushed. Whoever took ‘em out didn’t know the value of this thing, figured it was too big and heavy, and just left it.”
General Reaver stood with her arms crossed over her chest while two of her soldiers examined it. Cleo stood next to her, watching nervously, her expression tense.
“It’s legit,” one of them reported.
“What exactly does it do?” Gabriel asked.
“You know what an EMP is,” Jamal said.
“An electromagnetic pulse,” Gabriel said. “North Korea used a nuke like that to decimate part of Japan, set them back a hundred years. That’s why we nuked them in return.”
“An EMP burst fries electronics within a certain radius,” Jamal said. “But it takes out everything. The Phantom is a HERF, an EMP gun that fires an intense, controlled electromagnetic pulse that takes out a narrow target.”
“Won’t everything in the Sanctuary be hardened?”
“Not necessarily,” General Reaver said in her deep, throaty smoker’s voice. She squatted next to the weapon, stroking its sleek black side with her free hand. In her late forties, she was a tall, stern-faced black woman with hard, shrewd eyes. Gabriel didn’t doubt she shared her daughter’s single-minded dedication to the cause, no matter the cost. “The Phantom is future tech. It’s stronger than anything we’ve seen. It can burn right through Faraday cages and lead shields three inches thick.”
“We can’t penetrate the plasma wall without neutralizing their cannons first,” Cleo said. “That’s what this baby will do.”
“Can’t they just repair it?” Gabriel asked.
“Of course.” Cleo flashed a wicked grin. “But it will take time. And a little time is all we need.”
Something scuttled in the shadows behind the desk. Gabriel whirled, aiming his gun at the sound.
A furred, hump-backed shape scurried beneath the desk and popped out only a yard from where General Reaver squatted. Her hands and face were unprotected but for a thin pair of gloves and a paper mask.
“Get back!” Gabriel shouted. His first shot struck the desk leg a foot above the rat’s head.
The rat darted toward General Reaver. The general jerked back, instinctively raising her arms to protect her face and neck. The rat leapt, launching its muscled, bristling body straight at her.
It was too close. There was no clear shot. Gabriel watched in horror as the creature struck the General’s right hand and latched onto her thumb, scrabbling with its tiny claws for purchase. It sank its gleaming razor teeth deep into the flesh of her thumb.
She tried to fling the vicious creature off, but it was too strong.
“No!” Cleo lunged forward and slammed the butt of her gun against the rat—and her mother’s hand—with a loud crack.
The rat tumbled to the floor with an outraged screech. It scrambled to its feet but faltered, its hind legs limp and useless, likely shattered. Cleo struck it a second time, bashing its head and spine.
It let out a terrible, high-pitched sound as it writhed in agony. It twitched, then lay still.
General Reaver inhaled a sharp breath, but she did not cry out. She clutched her damaged hand to the chest of her navy wool peacoat. “I think you just broke half my fingers.”
“I was saving your life,” Cleo said.
General Reaver climbed heavily to her feet. “Let’s hope so.”
“Did it bite through the skin?” Colonel Reid asked. He was a heavy-set man in his fifties, his middle bulging against his coat, his jaw blurring into his neck. Gabriel had only met him a few times, but he had a weak, conniving look about him.
Colonel Reid’s olive-toned skin was ashen, his thick black brows lowered in alarm. He took a step back from General Reaver.
The general looked down at her hand. “Possibly.” She spoke in a calm, controlled voice. “The virus is passed through saliva and other bodily fluids.”
“Was the beast even infected?” Cerberus asked. “It doesn’t look like it.”
Gabriel nudged the limp body with the toe of his boot. He didn’t see the tell-tale bloody saliva around the jaws. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t infected. Normal rats weren’t aggressive. Normal rats didn’t attack human beings. “I’m not sure.”
Cleo stared down at the thing in revulsion. A tremor ran through her. She shook it off. Her whole body vibrated with barely restrained rage. “It’s not. It’s just a stupid rat. It’s fine.”
“Bag the creature,” the general said. “We can test it at the lab in the infirmary.”
Jamal pulled a few plastic bags from his backpack and gingerly wrapped it in several layers. Everyone watched General Reaver warily, as if they half-expected her to spontaneously leak blood from her eyes then and there.
“Load up the Phantom,” General Reaver ordered, her voice rough as gravel, her expression impassive. “We have a war to win.”
10
Amelia
“Whatever happens, we can’t let ourselves get separated,” Amelia muttered.
“I won’t let that happen,” Silas said beside her.
On her other side, Micah nodded. “We’re with you, always.”
She wished she could find more comfort in their words, but the dread coiling in her stomach was a living thing, voracious and insatiable. It gnawed at her hope like a cancerous rot.
They were inside a large, multi-domed tent assembled beside the gate in the plasma wall, separated from the outside world by a ring of wicked-looking barbed wire fencing. The containment center, the woman in the hazmat suit called it.
“The medical safety depar
tment oversees and evaluates all outsiders,” the woman had said briskly. “Wait here.”
The containment center was larger inside than it appeared, filled with rows and rows of small square cells with transparent, tent-like walls. Each cell served as a separate quarantine zone. The cement floors in each cell contained a drain—for reasons Amelia didn’t wish to contemplate—a single cot, a slot for food delivery, and a partitioned, non-transparent area for a latrine.
The cells Amelia could see were all empty.
The acerbic scent of antiseptic and bleach stung her nostrils. The smell was so strong that for a moment she felt lightheaded. They waited anxiously in the center of a ring of soldiers, all in hazmat suits, guns still pointed at them, while the woman conferred with two other officers with Coalition insignias emblazoned on their gray uniforms. She repeatedly gestured at the data on her holopad—the data that had appeared after she’d confirmed Amelia’s identity.
One of the officers glanced over at Amelia, his expression grim. He tapped his earpiece and spoke softly to whoever was on the other end, his gaze never leaving her face.
Amelia tensed. The sharp scent of antiseptic pricked her nostrils. Her breath stuck in her throat. But there was nothing she could do, nothing any of them could do. They were surrounded, outmanned and outgunned. The Sanctuary soldiers could do anything they wanted. There was nothing Amelia could do to stop them.
A second figure in a hazmat suit approached them. “Put these three in containment,” he said, gesturing at Amelia, Micah, and Silas.
“I’m not going in there,” Silas growled. “You can’t lock us up.”
“It’s not a prison,” the man said with a sigh. An Indian man in his mid-sixties, his grizzled face and thick gray eyebrows were visible through his helmet visor. “I’m Dr. Veejay Ichpujani. These isolation units are for the safety of everyone involved.”