Shifting Power

by Dacia M Arnold

  “Now I know what it must be like to hate someone you love so much.”

  “It’s torture, isn’t it?” she said flatly without an ounce of sympathy to give.

  “Well, can I recommend just ripping the bandage off?”

  “You’ll be fine, August. You’ve always been fine without me.”

  “I love you, Valerie. Damn it! I’ve done everything right. I’ve had patience. I waited. I waited when all I’ve wanted to do for months is rip every single wall in this building down to get to you. But you never wanted me to. You never gave a shit about anyone but yourself.”

  “You have lost NOTHING!”

  “You are my everything! You, Caleb, the baby. I wake up every day praying I will get at least five minutes with you. Listen to me. I’m nearly sixty years old and sappy in love with a child. You know nothing about love.”

  “Scott was my love,” she whispered. “My mother. My father. Hyka. My children. If I stay here any longer, what of everyone else? Even you. And if you survive what’s coming, and it’s just you and me on a pile of bodies, you will not love the person I’ve become. There will be a pile of bodies. I swear it.”

  She took another drink and left the room. Jack looked up at her as she walked across the apartment. She considered the man on the floor. He was the one who coached her here. He had no motives, and he was like a brother to her.

  Valerie went to her room, to the back of her closet where she had a stash of smaller clothes. Shooting a look to the television and trying to avoid the stains on the floor, she spoke a message which typed across the screen to Lalit:

  They’ve taken Caleb and Janie. I’m going after them. Please gather anything I might need, but especially clothes. Five hours, I will meet you on the tarmac. -Val

  Jack was up when she came out of her room.

  “I’m going to talk to Kevin. I know he did this.”

  “He’s not there,” Jack said.

  “What do you mean, ‘not there?’”

  “We ran into Kevin at the Council plane when we got in. Teresa must have released him. I tried to question him, but he put up a fight. Hyka left me to handle him while she went to check on you. I got a good piece of him, but when the entire building shook, I knew something was wrong. I didn’t know Duke was on the plane with Caleb and the locket. I left Kevin in the terminal but got here too late. I tried to stop him, Val. I swear,” Jack cried. “I couldn’t just let him take your baby. Then he took mine, too.”

  Valerie cried too. She didn’t know how to tell him how fierce his wife was even in death. If she didn’t leave soon, Jack would no doubt see his wife sooner rather than later. Everything she touched turned to death. He would fight to go with her, for revenge, but Valerie needed to do this on her own. She needed to fight on her own without people fighting for her.

  When she reached where the concrete met the bright green manicured grass, Valerie removed her shoes. She opened the wrought-iron gate and walked to the farthest corner of the cemetery. A gravesite had been prepared next to Austin Major, but Valerie avoided it. She lowered herself on the grass, lying with her head on the ground as if she were listening to the earth.

  “I don’t want to be alone, but I don’t belong here.” She waited, hoping he would answer her. “I love you. How can I ever do this without you? I can’t even protect them. I didn’t even get to hold her. I didn’t touch her once or smell her. Someone is holding our baby. What horrible things will they tell Caleb? He’s just a baby, too.” She cried, not caring who saw. The memory of Scott’s embrace in the place with the brilliant light came back to her. The warmth of him, the way he kissed her hand, her head, her mouth. “How am I supposed to be happy?”

  The cell phone chimed in her pocket with a message from Lalit, letting her know the gear was ready and waiting for her. The phone allowed the control room to track her. As long as August could check on her, he would leave her alone.

  By the time she reached where the pilot had staged the plane for takeoff, Lalit was waiting with three large black boxes. Jack stood next to her with a backpack over one shoulder.

  “No.”

  “I can’t let you go alone, kid,” he said at the ground. “I promised your dad.”

  “Take care of things here. Give yourself a few days. I will find my brother and rip his throat out. You have a job to do here, Jack. I swear I won’t kill anyone without you.”

  Jack dropped his pack and hugged her tight.

  “My queen.” Lalit bowed, and Valerie returned the gesture. “Yes, a few clothes. A few more supplies. Weapons, gadgets from the lab. Anything you might need on your journey. Be safe, my queen. Trust yourself and the gene.”

  Valerie heard those words from Monica and then from Scott in her dream. Hearing them again gave her a strong urgency to leave. She wouldn’t trust herself or the gene with August, and the last thing she needed was for him to change her mind. Jack walked her to her seat on the plane while the crew stowed her luggage away.

  “Welcome aboard, Madam DiaZem,” Captain Hutnik smiled and shook Jack’s hand before he departed the plane. “We’ll fly into Pittsburgh to refuel and assess the threat before jumping the last leg to Andrews Air Force Base. We have plenty of allies there, but the closer we get to the capitol, the hotter things get.”

  “I trust your judgment, Captain. Thank you.”

  Valerie looked down at her phone and the family photo saved to the wallpaper. Scott, Caleb, and her old self smiled up at her before fading to black as she powered off the device.

  On takeoff, the small craft shook with turbulence, normal for the altitude they held. Captain Hutnik kept up an easy conversation in her headset as she looked out the window and absently twirled the rings on her left hand. Trust the gene. Even if Scott’s words were just a dream, August reminded her of everything she lost. The farther she flew from Denver, the lighter she felt. Not happy, but a contentment settled in her bones. She was acting with no solid plan. In DC, she could get control of nuclear missiles and could rain down hell on her enemies. Valerie pushed the thought of children and innocent people from her mind. She was angry, nearly crazed, but she would never put another mother through such horror.

  Just over two hours into the flight, a jolt interrupted Valerie’s thoughts. She gripped the handrails of her seat and the oxygen mask dropped down from overhead.

  “Captain?” she yelled over the roaring sounds. “Captain Hutnik?”

  “Madam DiaZem, someone has hit us with a rocket or something. I’m working to correct the engine failure. We are a few miles south of Chicago. I’m trying to make it to Midway. Madam, please protect us. We’re going down hard.”

  Valerie cursed under her breath. She could protect no one. He should have known her track record was zero and seven. The plane shook to the point of nausea. Out her window, the right wing ripped away from the hull. She wanted to fall asleep, to miss the terrible crash, the pain of impact. She fought to remain calm as to not pull their energies too soon and risk having nothing left. The ground seemed to rise to meet them, speeding closer.

  “Protect us, Valerie!”

  A crunching sound woke her. Something or someone was moving about the wreckage. She blinked. August? He couldn’t handle her leaving so he must have followed her. In a plane? There was no way he could have made it so fast, unless she had been unconscious a long while. The left engine was still winding down, so not very long. Another DiaZem? The Chicago DiaZem? Had he been the one to shoot her down?

  Valerie adjusted her eyes through the smoke and fire around her. She was still buckled in her seat. A rod protruded from her left thigh, pinning her in place. She gripped the metal with both hands and bared her teeth, careful not to cry out. She had been through worse pain the night before and had healed, but the rod wouldn’t budge. She wanted to call out to the captain, to know if he survived the crash. The impact must have knocked the headset off. She heard voices. If the World Council wanted her dead, they would have taken her out when they kidnapped her children.
Maybe they assumed she died in childbirth.

  “She’s alive. Here,” a man’s voice said. The DiaZem.

  Valerie unbuckled her seat belt and tried to stand despite the rod in her leg. It went clean through the seat. She should have driven or even walked to DC.

  The voices got closer until a man stood over her. The DiaZem. Not the English one. This one was familiar, but if only for the gene.

  Valerie mustered her best Hyka impression, the epitome of an intimidating woman, and through a cough said, “Took you long enough. Help me up.”

  The DiaZem smiled, and like every time August ever smiled at her, her heart jumped a beat. He was handsome, and not just for her magnetic attraction.

  “Well, no one accused you of being weak. We’ll cut this thing shorter, then pull you up.” He knew her, or of her. There was no apprehension in his energy. He didn’t hold back like she had done for so long. An ally, she hoped.

  “Please, just pull me up. I’m tired of waiting.” Valerie kept up the tough facade.

  The man gripped her hand, his dark skin a contrast to her pale hand, and everything about him seemed to fit. Trust the gene. She pulled her leg upward and stood, letting the rod slide through and out the back of her leg. When she was upright, the man kept hold of her hand. She didn’t look up at him though his eyes sought hers. She waited until they restored all the connections in her leg. He led her away from the fire and wreckage to Captain Hutnik, who had dried blood on his forehead.

  “Madam, this is. . .”

  “TONY!” the DiaZem shouted over Captain Hutnik. “Anthony, but people call me Tony.”

  “You just happened to be here, Tony?” She tried the name on her tongue. Neither she nor Tony made a move to separate. “How do I know you’re not with the Council, here to stop me from getting to my kids?”

  “Because you’re still alive?”

  “Ugh,” Valerie pushed past the handsome man. “Mitch. If I were luggage, where would I have landed?”

  “Perhaps we follow the trail of the wreckage. The fuselage pretty much disintegrated on impact.”

  “There was technology on board,” she explained to her new companion. “Bracelets that mute our gene. We’re a moving beacon if we don’t get those on.”

  Tony raised an eyebrow at Valerie, not moving to follow her through the debris. “You expect me to follow you? Someone just shot down your plane. If I wanted to be a part of this battle, I would have shown up in Denver months ago.”

  Valerie turned with the biggest smile on her face. In his position, gene or not, she would still be running from this war. “Then why did you come? Why did you pull me out and save my pilot?”

  “You’re the first DiaZem I’ve been able to get close to. Honestly, I couldn’t not come.”

  His energy was far stronger than any she felt before. “We’re near Chicago, right?”

  “Not for long if we don’t get away from this wreckage.”

  “Help me find the tough boxes, or they’ll find us no matter where we hide. They are designed to withstand something like this. They should still be intact.”

  The three walked through the path of the wreckage. Her father had taught her how to walk and scan the ground in a forest. Her forced survival training came back to her like a second nature. Her heartbeat was in her ears, slow and calm. Heel to toe; her steps were light and soft. In a distant tree, she spotted a white cloth blowing in the wind.

  “There! Come on,” she instructed the men. Just as she picked up the pace, she heard a twig snap to her left. As she dropped to somersault to the closest tree, shots peppered where she had been standing. She had no control over traditional firearms, but she could kill every last person in those woods.

  “Hey! Cease fire!” Tony called from behind another tree. “It’s me, man.”

  “Cease fire!” a voice called from the cover of a fallen tree.

  Valerie moved from her position, walked quickly to where Tony stood and laid one solid punch to his jaw.

  “Who the hell are you? What is this? Why would you shoot down my plane, save me, then have your men fire at me? I want answers, now.”

  “The rocket that shot you down came from an airbase as you flew over. They’re about thirty miles from here. I just run power through Chicago. We were on a supply run to find baby formula for an orphan. Sappy story, but it’s true. But look,” Tony held up two copper bracelets. “Are these what you’re looking for?”

  “Where did you get these? Are you with the Council then? Do you know where my kids are?”

  “Valerie, I found them right here.” He rubbed his jaw. “And the Council doesn’t have your kids.”

  “How do you know? Who took them then?”

  “The Reactance took them.”

  The End

  Download Subject Alpha 1

  Book Four of the DiaZem Series

  Coming Soon: Subject 1 Alpha

  Preview: Subject 1 Alpha

  “Mum! I can’t see you. Take the tape off the camera,” Sam laughed and took a drink of his coffee. Having just returned to the dorms of Oxford after a pleasant birthday weekend with family, Sam gratefully gifted is old computer to his reluctant mother. He missed her, even if it had only been a few hours since he returned to university for the last leg of his doctorate program.

  “The whole point of telecoms is to see and chat. Otherwise, I’d just call you on the phone,” he laughed.

  “Blasted,” Martha Harrington cursed and finally the shadow on Sam’s screen made way for the image of his mother.

  “There, see? They make regular covers instead of tape.”

  “Well, I have tape. I don’t have a cover. Goodness, Samuel, have you lost weight? You’re looking a bit slim in the cheeks.”

  “You just saw me yesterday. If anything, I am fatter now after cake and all the biscuits you made.”

  “Hmm,” his mother shook her head disapproving. “You don’t look right, son.”

  “How do you like your new computer?”

  “I don’t like it much, Sam, I’ll admit. Your ole mum isn’t one for technology. Your father and I would have no electricity if it weren’t for you needing to tinker all the time.”

  “My tinkering is dad’s retirement.”

  “Now, now,” Martha warned and took a draw from a cigarette.

  “You said you quit when I was home! What is this rubbish?”

  “Oh, I was stressed after you left for school. You know how I get. If being born didn’t kill me nothing will. Besides, my nervous are shit. Are you sure you’re well? Let me bring you some meat and bread. You never buy anything good from the grocery.”

  “Imagine you on the train to Oxford with a hot roast in your lap,” Sam teased. “I’m fine, just a bit anxious to finish up class and take my final exams, I guess.”

  Martha’s fussing was nothing new. Anxiety was her nature after losing a brother and sister to hemophilia and another sister to cystic fibrosis. Even though Sam was adopted and didn’t hold the risk of those hereditary ailments, she doted over him as if he were fragile.

  Looking at Samuel Harrington, no one would take him for fragile. He was a towering six-foot-six and hefty would be a polite term for his mass. Her remark about looking thin neither set well with him nor did much for his self-esteem. He was known around campus as the big guy. He thought the teasing would ease up as he got older and began studying with likeminded peers, but no. He was still offered second and third helpings of everything. At twenty-three, his classmates were as relentless as ever.

  “Well at least eat breakfast today. You skip breakfast and it makes you dizzy. I don’t like it.”

  “Alright, but I’m not even that hungry today. I have to run to class now, mum. I promise I am fine. I’ll call you this evening to prove it.”

  Martha blew a puff of smoke out quickly then blew her son a kiss on the screen.

  Sam waved goodbye and closed his laptop. There was something wrong, like a ball of anxiety rolled in his gut. Not the emptiness feeli
ng of hunger, but restlessness. His hands shook just a little. He felt on the verge of a tipping point, irritated and close to breaking. Like the knowing step before jumping from the high dive. He breathed to calm his nerves. Three more months of university and Sam would graduate with his doctorate in theoretical physics at Queen’s College. Being in school nearly all his life, he would soon be thrust into the real world. Maybe his apprehension was starting to hit him. His email was empty of job offers. His phone held no voicemail of offered employment. No one was knocking on Sam’s door for his eight years of study. The only person who ever cared about him at all was his mum.

  “Hey there, big guy!” Benji and Michael stood when he walked in. “How’s your mummy? You plan on moving back home after graduation?”

  “Lay off, Benji. I’m not in the mood today.” Sam glared and grinded his teeth. This was normal banter from his mates, but the stab at his weight stung a little too much. He was very protective of his mum, too. An easy target for teasing.

  “Alright, man. Just don’t eat me,” Benji answered with his hands up in a fake defense.

  “Actually, Sam, you don’t look so good,” Michael said laying a back hand on Benji’s chest. “I mean, you look thin in the face. You’re not starving yourself are you?”

  “Stop with the shit, guys. Four years of making fat jokes isn’t enough? You can’t hold it in for a couple more months?” Sam towered over his two class mates and outweighed them by nearly half their weight. He made his way to the tea station and reached for a biscuit, but thought better of it. He was not hungry anyway. The movement was more of a habit.

  “No offense, Sam, but you have a neck. And only one chin.”

  At that Sam pulled a fist back to threaten the gesture, though he had never fought a day in his life. His anger boiled under the surface. Why today of all days did they chose to lay on the insults.

  “Hey!” Marcus yelled entering the common room of the dormitory stairs. “You guys lay off Sam.” He paused. “Are you okay? You look, erm, your cheeks are like sunken in. You well, man?”