by Moira Rogers
They hoped.
Zel studied the men, trying to ascertain if they suspected the deception, but their expressions were impossible to interpret. Two blandly unrecognizable men, so forgettable Zel wondered if their appearances had been hacked.
The one on the right pulled out a data pad and consulted it. “Katherine, was it? So your infiltration was successful.”
“Repeatedly successful.” His expression didn’t change, but Trip imbued the words with a hint of innuendo, and for a heartbeat Zel wanted to punch him. Kate had been heartbroken to find that the man who’d wooed her with such determination had been using her as a ticket into town.
The man with the data pad glanced at the man still fidgeting with his tie, and Tie arched an eyebrow. “We’ll be running the appropriate verification while we talk, of course. And we’ll need your passphrase.”
“I need a rose petal bath to soothe my aching head.”
Next to Zel, Lanna evidenced her odd sense of humor in a wholly inappropriate snicker, though she’d been the one to pluck the phrase from Cyrus’s head to begin with.
Data Pad nodded. “Initiating verification. As you may recall, before you left you were instructed to do everything possible to cultivate the attention and devotion of your target.”
“She likes to be called Katie. Not quite pretty, which makes her grateful.”
Lorenzo ground his teeth together.
“Her physical attributes, or lack thereof, are unimportant. She was not selected at random.”
A ping of warning shot through Zel, followed by fear so sharp it stung. Kate was a warm, caring woman, her occasional bouts of temper aside, but nothing made her stand out, except her job—helping Zel’s mother manage the nursery.
Trip held his tongue and waited for the man to continue, but Lorenzo fidgeted uneasily. “The man said they were initiating signal verification,” he whispered. “How long did Trip say a full scan would take?”
There was no need to whisper when the men weren’t really there, but Zel felt the same compulsion. “A few minutes, maybe?” Which could be why they were waiting to explain the real mission. Until they could be sure that the man they were meeting with was legitimate, it wouldn’t be worth the risk, not when there was nothing to keep the intruder from dropping out of the network with his newly acquired information.
It made perfect sense—until Data Pad spoke again. “Your target is intimately involved in the day-to-day care and upbringing of the children. Through her, we need you to gain access to information about the hybrid children and any unique skills they might possess. We have intelligence indicating that the colony has produced at least one healer of some power—”
Wherever Zel’s body was, blood must be roaring in his ears. The world seemed to narrow, until it was hard to breathe, hard to think.
The bastards were after their children. After his niece.
Lorenzo shoved away from the wall, circled the two men from Nicollet and peered down at the data tablet the shorter man held. “Still running. Zel. They haven’t finished the verification.”
The words penetrated the rage hazing his vision. “That’s impossible. Why would they tell him this before they verified?”
“They wouldn’t.” The data pad beeped, short blips that sounded like a warning, and Lorenzo swore savagely. “Drop out, Trip. Drop now—”
The man with the data pad looked directly at Trip and pressed a button on the side of the device.
Lanna screamed, and the room exploded.
Zel lunged for Lanna as she started to fall and tripped over a couch that hadn’t been there a second before. The walls twisted around them, flickering in a pulsing, hypnotic rhythm as a dark copy of his office super-imposed itself over the chaotic mess around them.
Next to him Lanna hit the floor and vanished. Before Zel could draw another breath she reappeared, three feet away and frantic. “He’s seizing! In the office, Trip’s seizing!”
She blinked out again, and Zel spun until he found Trip. He screamed silently, his eyes frantic and pleading. Lorenzo stood beside him, his eyes closed and shoulders rigid. His mouth moved, but no sound escaped.
Trip screamed again, and the sound echoed, reverberated through their network.
“Lorenzo, we need—”
Cache appeared before he could finish the sentence. Anger sparked in her eyes and vibrated in her entire body as she whirled on Lorenzo. When she caught sight of Trip, she stopped short and dropped beside him. Then she cupped his cheeks and swore. “Go get your healer, Zel. And Devi. Then get anyone you’ve got in this place who knows their way around a circuit board. Now.”
Out of his depth and more scared than he wanted to admit, Zel did the only thing he could—he obeyed.
Chapter Eleven
Devi wasn’t sure which was worse—the office where Rosa bent over Trip, trying to save his body, or the private network where Cache worked desperately to preserve his mind.
It was a relief to drop into the network and escape the frantic, staccato beep of Trip’s telemetry unit, but she found it jarring to see Trip at a terminal, pounding at a keyboard with Cache bent over his shoulder.
Devi took a deep breath. “What’s going on in here?”
Cache didn’t look up. “You should jump back out unless we need you. The network should be secure, but better safe than sorry.” She lifted a finger and jabbed at the screen. “Comment this out and try again, damn it. Don’t you dare give up, you fucking chipmonkey.”
“It’s not giving up.” He sounded calm and determined. One wall faded into a telemetry display, and the same erratic beeps Devi had left behind in the real world echoed around them. “Ventricular tachycardia. The bastards are telling my heart to beat fast enough to kill me. Every time Rosa cardioverts and fixes the rhythm, they start it again.”
Devi’s lips felt numb. “How are they doing it? Over the network?”
He didn’t answer. “Get Zel. I need to talk to him.”
Cache glanced back, her eyes bleak. “Hurry.”
She was too scared to be nauseated as she complied and slid back into her body with a jerk. “Trip needs you, Zel.”
Zel didn’t waste time with words. He closed his eyes, but his body didn’t go lax the way some people’s did while linked up. He flinched sharply, and his fingers clenched around the arms of his chair.
The computer monitoring Trip’s vital signs issued a warning tone, followed by a mild voice. “Ventricular fibrillation. Recommend application of three hundred joules of electricity via unsynchronized cardioversion.”
“Fuck.” Lorenzo grimaced and dipped his head. “Damn it.”
Rosalyn gripped Lorenzo’s wrist and laid the other hand on Trip’s chest. Concentration painted her features, her brows pulling together and her lips pressing tight. She looked exhausted, drained physically and mentally, but she didn’t falter. Her body stiffened, muscles tense and trembling, and sweat broke out on Lorenzo’s face.
When the machines silenced, Rosalyn drooped. “I don’t know how many more times I can stabilize his rhythm. Even though I’m taking the power from somewhere else, it still has to go through me, and I don’t know how to direct it. I don’t know—I don’t know enough. I should know enough.”
“You’re doing what you can.” Devi laid a hand on the girl’s shoulder, sympathy making her throat raw. “Everyone is.”
Lorenzo went rigid.
“Lorenzo?” Rosalyn’s voice trembled as she reached for him. “Are you—”
“Cache wants to talk to you,” he rasped. “In the network, Devi.”
She didn’t have time to wonder how he’d known that, or ask if it had anything to do with how Cache had arrived so quickly when Trip needed her. “Okay.”
Back in the network, Trip and Cache seemed to be arguing about something, but the words might as well have been gibberish. As soon as Devi arrived, Zel moved to stand next to her, tension in every line of his body. “Cache wants us to get something from your truck.”
&
nbsp; Cache looked wrecked, but Trip squared his shoulders and faced Devi. “It’s a next-gen server setup, very high tech and very illegal to own without proper licensing. She says she has one. We’re going to need it to save me.”
Devi remembered. Cache had picked it up in Milwaukee off an arms runner who dealt in black-market computer equipment on the side. It had been expensive, ten times the cost of an engine overhaul, but she’d sworn to Devi it could pay for itself in a single use…if they ever needed it. “I know what you’re talking about.”
“Do you know where she stowed it?”
Maybe she wasn’t supposed to, but she’d paid attention. “I can get it. It’s going to help?”
Trip smiled sadly. “It’s my only chance.”
Judging from Rosalyn’s exhaustion, they were running out of time. “Is it safe to leave?”
Trip understood. “Cache can stay here. I checked the network. It’s secure.”
“Cache?”
She stood frozen, unmoving, but finally bit off an answer. “Get it.”
Trip sighed in relief. “Tell Rosa to get the ventilator ready. We’ll need it.”
Devi knew Zel would follow her, so dropped out, her body twitching before she’d even returned to it completely. “Ventilator,” she croaked. “Zel and I have to get something for Cache.”
Lorenzo looked up. “It might be stopping. He’s holding a steady heartbeat now.”
“Ping Clara. I think she’s the medic on duty.” Zel snatched up a gun from his desk and shoved it into its holster before looking at Devi. “Where’s this equip she wants?”
“Stored in one of the weapons lockers. It’s the most secure place.”
He picked up a small wireless earpiece next. “We’re going topside. Keep us updated.”
Devi glanced at him as they slammed out of the office and headed toward the garage. “You were in there. What’s she going to do with this thing?”
Their boots echoed loudly enough in the narrow hallway that he had to raise his voice. “Not a damn clue, sweetheart. Trip can dumb this shit down for the laypeople when he wants, but they weren’t pausing to interpret. Hell, I don’t even know if they were speaking English.”
“It doesn’t matter. If Trip needs it, it’s his.”
“Thank you.” He shoved open the door at the end of the hallway then stopped, grabbing her arm. “I mean it, Devi. Thank you.”
She’d have done it for anyone, but she didn’t think she’d feel this same sense of terror, at once jarring and numbing, at anyone else’s potential loss. “You’re welcome.”
On the other side of the door, a set of concrete stairs formed a zigzag up to the ground floor. Zel checked his watch and glanced at her. “Almost dawn. The tunnels are a maze and it’s faster to travel topside, but we don’t have undirected ADS for obvious reasons. If you tell me exactly where it is, I can get it and be back before the sun’s up.”
“It’s under biometric lock, Zel. I have to go with you.”
His crinkled brow and tense shoulders made it clear he didn’t like it, but he didn’t argue. “Then up we go. Stick close to me, and if I tell you to run like hell, do it. We get the occasional fishing expedition around sunrise.”
Just the two of them, running hell bent for leather over open terrain. “How far is it to the garage?”
“About a third of a mile.”
Devi silently thanked the grueling fitness program Juliet had developed for the crew. “Not wearing anything reflective, are you?”
Zel arched one eyebrow at her, and he almost smiled. “No.”
He was probably making fun of her, but she didn’t have time to care. “Lead the way, then.”
As soon as they hit the top of the stairs, Zel drew his gun and slapped his free hand against a scanner panel on the wall. The doors had been glass at one point, but someone had reinforced the outside with a sheet of solid steel so shiny their reflections stared back at Devi as she waited for the locks to disengage.
They did, but Zel didn’t push open the door. He typed something into the access panel and moved aside. “Put your hand on there. I’m giving you full access to every outside door. If anything happens, or we get separated, you’ll be able to get back inside.”
They had to prepare themselves for the worst, so she laid her hand on the panel and watched as the green glow of the scanner recorded its imprint.
It only took a few seconds, five at the most, before the panel chimed quietly. Zel slid his fingers over hers and moved her hand, replacing it with his own. This time, when the panel chimed, the locks on the doors disengaged. He pushed one open, and the cold air rushed in as they slipped out into the last remnants of night.
The stars winked down at them. Every time Devi saw them like this, nothing separating her from them but miles and miles of space, they took her breath away. So bright, even in the lightening sky, and a constant reminder that most people stood under the naked sky only a handful of times in their lives.
She did it almost every night.
No time to admire the view now. Devi could see the garage bay doors across a clearing and wished fervently that there were more structures occupying all that empty space.
Then she thought of Trip and his steady determination, and she shot out at a dead run.
Zel loped next to her, and he made it look effortless. The predawn air hung still and heavy, disrupted only by the distant rumble of generators and the sound of their boots slamming against the ground.
A little more than halfway across the field, the breakneck pace began to take its toll, leaving her lungs and muscles burning. Juliet had pushed Devi until she could run a six-minute mile, but she couldn’t sprint it.
“You okay?” The damn man didn’t even sound winded.
All she could manage was a clipped, “Yeah.”
He checked his pace, just a little, but enough for her to keep up as the ground under their feet changed from unkempt grass to gravel. “Almost there.”
“Peachy.” If she focused on responding, she didn’t have to dwell on the way her mind manufactured angry roars under the whine of the generators.
Gravel crunched under their feet, sliding sometimes, making for awkward footing. Fifteen feet out, Zel shot ahead of her to the door. He had it unlocked and open by the time she reached him. “In.”
He slammed the door behind them, and Devi nearly stumbled to her truck. Her hands shook and slipped on the handle, but she finally got the trailer’s access door open.
A regular touch-key lock pad secured the weapons locker, and she hastily entered the code. “Need a bigger gun for the run back?”
“Couldn’t hurt. Have you got a bag or something I can use to carry this thing and keep my hands free?”
“I’ve got something.” She shoved a loaded pump-action shotgun at him and upturned a small knapsack to empty it of spare ammunition.
The secondary safe was small, two feet cubed, so she’d had Tanner laser-weld it into the locker. Something that size was only secure if a thief couldn’t tuck it under his arm and run off with it. Devi lifted the hinged cover over the biometric scanner and pressed her finger to the smooth, cool surface.
It seemed like forever, but it took mere seconds to complete the scan, and the lock whirred open. “Got it.” She tucked the silver box into the knapsack and zipped it. “Here.”
Zel hefted the bag, testing its weight before slinging it over his shoulder. “Haven’t seen a server this big since we uncovered a bunch of sixty-year-old equipment in one of the back storage rooms.”
“I don’t think it’s technically on the market yet.”
“Fair enough.” He lifted the shotgun and braced himself, as if for an argument. “I want you to go back through the tunnels.”
Devi hesitated. She still hadn’t caught her breath, and Zel could make the trip back twice as fast without her slowing him down. On the other hand… “I can’t. Cache might need my help communicating to set up the server.”
He didn’t look ha
ppy, but he didn’t fight. “Then let’s go. Straight shot back, and if anything happens you take the bag and run for the door.”
It was exactly why he’d programmed her into the security system, and Devi nodded as she buckled a belt holster around her hips. “Let’s try to avoid leaving you out here, okay?”
His grin was half-cocky violence and all dangerous heat. “Here’s to hoping, sweetheart. You ready to run?”
“No.” She unsnapped her holsters and hurried to the door anyway.
They hadn’t been in the truck for long, but the sky had lightened even more, the deep navy overhead fading into purple before sliding to the barest blushing pink on the horizon. Sunrise came early to the plains, where flat land rolled on for miles. Zel eyed the sky, his gaze making a full sweep from east to west, and he nodded. “Go. I’ll be right behind you.”
Devi took off. Time stretched out, an eternity passing between each heavy bootfall. Her blood pumped, pounding so loudly in her ears that she couldn’t even hear the generators anymore. Her field of vision narrowed, focused on the door they’d left.
A little faster, Dev. Just do it.
The first indication of trouble was Zel’s rough shout. He shot past her, so fast his body was just a blur in the uncertain light. He had the pack off a second later, holding it out as he turned. “Don’t look back.”
Of course. Any clever predator who saw them dash for the garage would position himself to watch, to see if they’d come out on foot or in a vehicle.
Then he’d only have to wait.
Devi wouldn’t win a fight, even against one, but Zel could. And he’d never forgive her if she stopped to help, so she grabbed the knapsack and ran faster, keeping her gaze fixed on her goal.
The fight was more terrifying in nothing but snatches of noise. First a wordless roar, then Zel’s voice, that same low, hoarse battle cry she’d heard when he’d first crashed into her life. Metal clashed against metal, the stark clang ringing off the buildings surrounding the courtyard. Grunts. A hiss of pain. Zel’s snarl.