Sunscapes Trilogy Book 1: Last Chance

by Michelle O'Leary

  "Oh, yeah. It'll be about as covert as busting down the front door."

  "All right, you work on making a hole, and I'll work on a distraction."

  "What the hell does that mean?"

  She grinned at the aggressive suspicion in his tone. “Trust me."

  "Sun's blood,” he swore in a low voice, and she snickered as she moved from his side, allowing the current to snatch her away.

  Studying the chaotic forces of the surrounding area, she chose a swirling pocket of gases that had just the right volatile elements and dropped a capsule into it. Setting the capsule's timer, she fought her way back to where she'd left Del.

  "Any luck?” she asked in a casual tone.

  "Almost there,” he muttered.

  "Good, because in about sixty seconds we either get inside that shield or die out here."

  "You sure know how to show a guy a good time,” he snarled.

  "No pressure,” she said idly, checking the countdown. “Just a chain reaction that will set this whole region off in a series of rather spectacular explosions. They won't even notice the front door opening."

  He muttered an insult about her upbringing, which she chose to ignore, before saying, “Tell me when."

  "When you see a blinding light off to your starboard side."

  "Won't they be suspicious about what started the reaction?"

  "I'd imagine that this kind of thing happens when somebody sneezes hard around here. This place is a bomb waiting to ha—"

  The first explosion cut her off, nearly blinding all her sensors. Wincing, she burst out of their hiding spot and fled towards the factory. The murky depths of the nebula were lighting up all around them, and the force of the detonations was like a brutal kick, sending her spinning wildly. Fighting for control, she was aware of Del tumbling next to her—and the solid shield rushing towards them.

  "Del!” she cried out in alarm, but there was no time to break away. Bracing for an impact that would shatter them both like glass, she caught her breath ... only to let it out in a rush when the field flickered a microsecond before her nose reached it.

  "No faith,” she heard him rasp as they plummeted past the field into a stunning calm.

  She'd have to wait until later to yell at him for scaring her like that. They had to get into the factory before the explosions faded and the facility's sensors recovered enough to spot them. Not an easy task, considering that her own sensors were working at less than thirty percent of normal. Going by both her memory of what the place had looked like from the outside and the sporadic readings from her Shadow, Sin arrowed in on the facility.

  But the area she chose had no docking bay visible, and they searched frantically like the blind feeling their way to salvation, until Del muttered, “There, looks like storage dock."

  It was an opening, anyway. They plunged into the blackness, gambling that there would be no one within to see their entrance. Away from the radiation and fitful energy waves of the nebula's fury, their sensors began to recover and Sin was relieved to see that Del had been right. They were in a storage dock, cargo pods stacked in neat formations, waiting for a hauler to tow them away.

  As they landed discreetly between two rows away from prying eyes, Sin grimaced at the number of cargo pods in the cavernous bay. Blue traffic must be doing very well for Griffin. Powering down her Shadow, she disconnected and opened the seal, grateful for the chance to stretch her muscles.

  Del levered himself out of his own Shadow with a grim look up at the canisters towering over them. “Business is good,” he muttered with a sour curl of his lip before cocking his head in a listening posture. “Is that for us?"

  There was a siren wailing away in the interior of the facility. Sin listened for a moment, then crept to the edge of the pods to scan the bay.

  "I doubt it, or they'd be all over us by now. Probably warning systems for the firecrackers outside."

  He snorted and gave her a wry look, his dark eyes pulling at her like gravity. “Some firecracker."

  She lifted her eyebrows at him with a smirk as she headed back to her Shadow. “Well, it worked, didn't it?"

  "We need to get you a new self-preservation instinct, Lady Shadow. You've lost yours somewhere."

  She chuckled as she reached inside her slicer and pulled out the carrysack, rummaging inside for a moment before coming up with a smaller bag and slinging it over her shoulder. “Goodies,” she said to Del when he looked at her in question. “Grab yours—we'll probably need it."

  "What kind of goodies?” he asked as he leaned into his own slicer to copy her maneuver.

  Eyeing his well-formed posterior with a faint, lascivious smile, she answered, “Weapons, explosives, tech toys, and a snack for the road. All the necessities for a rousing Fringe adventure."

  He backed out of his Shadow and shot her a disgusted look as he slung his own bag over his shoulder. “We also need to get you a new sense of humor."

  "Everybody's a critic,” she sighed, pulling out a hand weapon and tucking it into her waistband. “Ready?"

  He nodded, expression taking on a serious edge. “Sin...” he started to say, but his voice trailed off as he reached out to brush a strand of hair away from her face. She wanted to close her eyes and lean into his touch, to fall into him and never come back out, but they had a job to do. And he was still her employee, her responsibility.

  With a faint smile that quivered at the edges despite her efforts, she clasped his hand and murmured, “Come on. Let's get this over with."

  His warm fingers closed around hers with gentle strength for a moment before he let her go. Breathing deeply to regain her focus, she led the way around the pods and towards the entrance to the factory.

  "First order of business,” she said as they approached the solid vacu-seal doors, “is to find an access terminal and figure out where the hell we are."

  "This place looked like a rat maze from outside,” he commented at her elbow.

  She nodded as she cautiously looked through a small, porthole-like window in the doors, checking the corridor beyond for company. “Wandering around aimlessly won't get us anywhere but dead in a hurry. The info we're looking for won't be lying around for anybody to trip over, either. We need to find out where they're keeping their main terminals."

  "What about security?"

  "Man or machine?” she asked as she pulled a small device out of her bag.

  "Both,” he answered, and she nodded.

  "Probably, but not as much as you'd think. That nebula cuts down on the need for much security, and manpower isn't cheap anywhere in the universe."

  With a precise flick, she opened the control panel to the doors and settled the device over the door's systems.

  "Whatcha doin'?"

  She grinned at the impatient edge to his casual drawl. “Just because I don't think there's going to be much security doesn't mean I should just waltz in there without checking first."

  He tilted his head in acknowledgement before leaning over her shoulder to inspect the device, which was vibrating with an almost audible hum. He was close enough for her to feel the heat from his body, and it took a vast amount of willpower for her to not fold into him.

  "How's it work?"

  "Ask Cassie,” she murmured, and smirked at his rumble of disgust.

  "This, too?"

  "Jill-of-all-trades, our Cassie-girl. The quick and dirty version is that it'll detect the presence of heat, motion, auditory, and visual sensors in the immediate area. In other words, any kind of security systems."

  "Handy."

  She hummed agreement, watching as the display on the device scrolled an assessment of the area. “Good, just one visual sensor over the door. Let's go.” She detached her detector and hit the door release, striding through without pause.

  Del growled a wordless warning, catching her elbow as he followed. “Didn't you just say there's a sensor above there?” he snapped, as he jerked his head towards the door.

  With a smile, she
flipped the detector in the air and caught it again. “It also deactivates what it finds."

  "Now she tells me,” he muttered, giving her a black look as he brushed by her and headed down the corridor.

  With a snicker, she followed, admiring the powerful bunch and slide of his muscles as he moved. Focus, she admonished herself as they approached a split in the corridor. Placing a cautionary hand on Del's arm, she flattened against the wall and slid up to the split, snatching quick looks down the three, odd-angled corridors that forked away from them.

  "Clear,” she whispered, and chose a corridor that seemed to head more towards the center of the structure. They moved into it, Sin watching for more visual sensors like the one over the bay door, while Del kept an eye on their retreat. But a short way down the corridor, it folded back on itself and split again, the appearance and structure of the walls changing somewhat. Sin guessed that either they were leaving an addition to the factory or entering one.

  Slipping a knife out of her bag, she dug a small scratch into the wall to mark their passage and chose a corridor. Two more of these choices later, they found another vacu-sealed door. There was a visual sensor above this one as well.

  "We can go a different way,” Del suggested, but she shook her head, snatching a look around the corner at the offending door.

  "If they're concerned about security for what's beyond that door, it's worth checking out. At the very least, we should find that access terminal there."

  "So, does Cassie's toy disable long distance? Or maybe turn us invisible?"

  "You're so cute when you're being sarcastic,” she whispered, lifting an eyebrow at him as she pulled a metal ball from her bag. It was about the size of her thumb. “Watch your eyes. This critter might be little, but it packs a punch."

  Depressing the end, she reached around the corner and flicked the ball away from them towards the door. It made small clinking sounds as it bounced, but she knew it was too small to catch the eye of anyone who might be monitoring that approach.

  "Be ready to run,” she said, and buried her face into the crook of her elbow. There was a small, undramatic popping sound, but even with her eyes shielded, she could see the flash of punishing white light. Before it completely diminished, she reached out and caught a fistful of Del's shirt, tugging them both around the corner. The whiteout should have fried the sensor, but better safe than sorry.

  They fetched up against the wall next to the door, squinting at each other like moles in the bright light of day.

  "Damn it, woman, warn me next time!” he snapped as she opened the control panel and put Cassie's toy to work again.

  "What, and ruin the surprise?” she asked, and then gave him a wink when he growled at her. “Now, Del, where's your sense of fun?"

  He scowled at her and gestured back the way they'd come. “Back at the station with my common sense.” His tone was sour, but there was a snap to his dark eyes that looked nothing like reluctance.

  She laughed low in her throat and detached the detector, flattening herself next to the door as it opened. A quick look showed the corridor beyond to be empty. It was also much better lit than the ones they'd traversed so far, and Sin exchanged a tense look with Del at the antiseptic flavor to the air. It had an ugly, underlying odor that was both familiar and abhorrent. Not the smell of a Blue lab—this area had the look and stench of a medical ward. Numbered doors were interspersed along the corridor, and machines that looked like monitors sprouted at intervals from the walls.

  With a new caution, they moved down the corridor, alert for signs of movement or security. It didn't take them long to find both. Where the corridor branched into others, voices bounced around the corner to warn them.

  Del made a sharp gesture at the nearest door, and Sin opened it, slipping inside. Del was right on her heels, and the door slid shut behind them, cutting off her view of two men in haphazard uniform striding around the corner. They'd been deep in conversation, though, and hadn't seen them.

  In the next breath, Sin lost interest in the two security personnel as a vile odor assaulted her senses. Del swore softly, and they turned as one to view the interior of the room.

  There were four gelbeds spaced around the room, with forms floating in the gel that were recognizable as human only by their general shape. Their bodies twisted and grotesque, it was difficult to tell their gender, even though they were naked and mercilessly on display under hot exam lights. Their limbs were shriveled, cracked, and oozing, bruises and sores violating large areas of their flesh while tubes and wires trapped them in a heartless web. What skin wasn't ravished by marks or invading technology had a sick blue undertone that was horribly familiar.

  And in the nearest bed, Sin could see indigo tears slipping out of the corner of that victim's closed eyes. “Test subjects,” she breathed, gagging on the stench and the sight of the horrors that used to be human.

  With a groan that sounded both nauseated and incensed, Del strode to the nearest bed and reached for a sinuous tube that seemed to dive directly into the patient's heart. Within it flowed a liquid the color of the twilight sky.

  "No,” Sin murmured, stepping quickly after him and catching his wrist as his hand closed on the tube. “You can't save her. She's too far gone. But there are hundreds of thousands of people out there who can look forward to this as their future, if we don't stop it. Remember how many cargo pods were stacked up in that storage bay."

  He met her gaze, and the flat grimness of his dark eyes and the white tension around his mouth made her throat close with empathy.

  "This is the face of the Core, Del,” she whispered past the constriction in her throat. “Help me kill it."

  He glanced down at the ruin in the bed, before closing his eyes and turning his head away. Letting go of the tube, he slid his arm through her clasp until his fingers closed around hers. “Let's get out of here,” he rasped.

  "Sun's mercy,” she whispered under her breath for the tormented souls she couldn't save, and turned her back on them. Swallowing nausea that was as much from guilt and anger as it was the stench, she moved swiftly to the exit, listening at the door for movement in the corridor before she opened it.

  They left the room in grim silence, making their swift way along the corridors until they came to what looked like a monitoring station. It was unmanned. Sin grimaced, revolted at this show of unconcern for their patients—their test subjects weren't even afforded the dignity of human contact, watched over by cold and indifferent machines.

  On the other hand, it made her job easier. Signaling Del to keep watch for personnel, she slipped into the booth. Surrounded by the steady hum of monitors detailing the vital statistics of people who were effectively dead, she searched for and found an access terminal. She touched the screen cautiously, but was pleased to see it respond without requesting clearance. In no time at all, she was looking at schematics of the factory. They were indeed in the Medical section of the facility, though she was disgusted to see that this specific area was labeled “terminals.” She passed swiftly over the engineering, production, and lodging areas, but her attention was caught by the word “Administrative."

  Excellent, she thought to herself as she traced the possible pathways to that section. If they were going to find out who gave the orders around here, that was the place.

  A warning hiss from Del caught her attention, and she ducked out of sight as a worker came into view. Crouching on the balls of her feet, she pulled the hand weapon out of her waistband and listened as the footsteps approached. They paused once just outside of the booth, before moving on. A long moment passed before she heard Del whisper, “Clear."

  Rising smoothly to her feet, she confirmed their path to Administrative, before shutting down the terminal and returning to Del's side. She watched his eyes flicker to the weapon in her hand, his mouth twisting in what could have been grim amusement or disgust, but he said nothing.

  "This way,” she murmured, and headed away from the monitoring station.
<
br />   They made steady progress at first, the corridors that they traversed mostly empty, but the closer to Administrative they got, the more populated their path became. Slowed by caution and unexpected detours, they crept towards their goal with frustrating slowness. Sin finally gambled on a shortcut, one which looked safe, since it was under construction, but it turned out to be a mistake.

  Edging along the wall struts of a half-finished, dimly lit corridor with Del on her heels, Sin froze to see shadows dancing around the corner up ahead. Even worse, footsteps and a raucous laugh threatened them from behind. Del swore in her ear, before wrapping a thick arm around her waist and pulling her bodily through the struts into a darkened room-in-progress. Ducking behind a stack of wall sections, he set her on her feet, bracing his hands on either side as he crowded her against the stack.

  He surrounded her. She heard people passing in the corridor beyond, the raucous laugh ringing out again, but it was fast becoming a distant concern. Every breath she took held his scent, a spicy, male smell like hot ginger. The air warmed against her skin, as if he was wrapping her in an envelope of his heat. At every inhalation, his chest brushed against her sensitized breasts, and when he exhaled, his breath feathered across her cheek and neck like teasing kisses. She could see his pulse throbbing under the golden skin of his throat, and the sudden urge to lean forward and taste him, to fill her mouth with his flesh, turned her entire body to molten liquid.

  Caught between a burning desire and a barely remembered reason why she shouldn't go further, she swayed in the circle of his arms, bracing herself with hands on his waist. Her body brushed against his, sending tingling fire through her breasts, her hips, her thighs.

  He made a deep sound in his throat, a heavy rumble that rubbed over her nerves like rough velvet. She glanced up to see that he looked as dazed and staggered as she felt. His dark gaze tangled with hers, and she watched his lips form her name with a slow sweep of his lashes, as if her name was a sweetness to be savored. Her knees came unhinged, and she felt herself beginning to sag into him.

  A distant shout seeped through the fog her brain had become, and coaxed some disjointed thought from her. They couldn't do this, especially not here. There was danger. She shifted away from him and sagged against the wall sections instead of his hard body. Closing her eyes, she swallowed heavily and tried to recall what they were doing.