In the Ruins (Metahuman Files Book 2)

by Hailey Turner

  They left the ready room and took the nearest elevator to the command levels high up in the main building. Those levels were restricted, but very little was restricted to metahumans on base. Jamie led them past the war room, a heavily secured room that was the beating heart of the MDF’s field operations, and into a briefing room Kyle had considered Alpha Team’s by his second month with the MDF.

  Metahumans made up a small percentage of active field agents in the MDF, but they were given the more critical missions due to their powers. Not all metahumans came from military ranks, which made Alpha Team unique in the damage they could do against an enemy, whether on domestic or foreign soil.

  Jamie pressed his palm to the control panel and the door slid open. Everyone filed inside and Jamie nodded at the room’s only occupant. “Sir.”

  He didn’t salute only because he was out of uniform, but Kyle and the others did. Metahuman Defense Force Director Amir Nazari nodded in acknowledgment of their greeting. “Welcome back. I hear things didn’t go as planned on this mission.”

  “No, sir,” Kyle said as he sat down.

  The team ranged itself around the table with a large screen embedded in the top, opaque and empty of data or command windows. Kyle watched as Nazari took his usual seat at the head of the table. The director had a long military background and still carried an active commission with the United States Army as a three star general. Going into his sixth year heading up the MDF, Nazari was a superior officer Kyle had come to respect in the nearly seven months since he’d joined Alpha Team last summer. The craggy-faced director wasn’t one for fits of rage when missions didn’t go as planned, but he did want answers.

  “What happened?” Nazari asked, meeting Kyle’s gaze.

  “The target knew my position. I don’t know how, but he looked right at me through my scope before the bomb went off. I didn’t choose the shooting location until we got on-site. I don’t know how they could’ve known where we’d be far enough in advance to set up a bomb like that.”

  “My hacks didn’t see anyone else in the system,” Katie added.

  Jamie frowned. “I’d hate to think we have a leak somewhere.”

  Considering they’d had an infiltration by the enemy last summer, Kyle didn’t think anyone would be happy if it turned out there was a leak. Katie and the handful of other telepaths the MDF employed had initiated full scans of all employees in surprise checks several times since then on orders from Nazari. They’d managed to weed out a few lower-level agents since Everly’s attack on the MDF headquarters, but luckily nothing worse than that had turned up.

  People might not like the mental scans, but those who worked for the MDF knew when they signed on that telepaths could use their power on their own side if the need was great enough. Telepathy was the most legislated out of the slew of metahuman powers that had cropped up in the past one hundred years. The public really didn’t like someone being able to read their innermost thoughts without some form of restriction.

  Of course, that really only worked on an honor system, which was why metahumans who didn’t join the MDF were always monitored. Kyle didn’t have a problem with Katie and her power. The team’s second-in-command was a rock-solid sergeant he had great respect for. Getting used to her telepathy had taken time, but both he and Alexei could now handle it without risking a headache.

  Kyle watched as Nazari tapped his fingers against the screen embedded in the table, waking up the computer. “Ceres, retrieve the scope pictures,” Nazari said.

  “Retrieving scope pictures,” the MDF’s smart building operating AI said in its usual serene, female voice.

  A multitude of holopics flickered into existence in the center of the table. Kyle glanced down at the command window that opened up in his terminal and started swiping through the dozens of pictures his scope had managed to take and upload back to base before his weapon got caught in the bomb’s blast. Picking out several of the clearest, he swiped his fingers over them and sent them toward the center. The other holopics minimized, letting those couple take up everyone’s attention.

  “This one is of Estrada when he tagged my location,” Kyle said, glaring at the holopic of the man in question preparing to draw his thumb across his throat to simulate cutting it. “There is absolutely no question he made me.”

  Kyle pointed at the next holopics, that of a woman, her head mostly turned away from his rifle scope, less than a quarter of her face showing. He knew a facial recognition program wasn’t going to come up with much using that little to search off, even with an AI backing the search and multiple agency databases thrown into the mix.

  “These are the buyers. Russians by the look of them. Actual Russians, not Russian-American.” Kyle tilted his head in Katie’s direction. “Don’t take that as an insult.”

  “None taken,” she said dryly. “I like not being lumped in with the enemy.”

  Kyle looked over at Alexei, watching as his brother moved photos around, copying out what tattoos he could see into a separate file for further review. Bratva tattoos told a story much like all gang tattoos did. From identifying what group owned them to how many people they’d killed, the ink gang members sported was as much a calling sign as an identity. A lot of gangs nowadays limited the areas their members could sport ink, with some groups not letting any members wear tattoos at all. But some traditions just would not die.

  “<>” Kyle asked in Russian.

  “<>” Alexei muttered, still pulling out tattoos.

  Kyle left him alone and refocused on the table at large, switching back to English. “We were a mile away. I don’t know how they could’ve found us out.”

  He knew he sounded frustrated, but he couldn’t help it. Kyle hated when a mission didn’t go right, and this one had gone wrong in ways that set his teeth on edge. He’d been made by targets before, a rare occurrence, but it happened, just not like this. Not by people who were prepared with a perfectly placed bomb meant to take them out.

  “Did any of the other floors in the building have bombs?” Nazari asked.

  Madison shook her head. “No. It was a small enough blast that it only took out the office area on the floor we were hunkered down in. No secondary blasts occurred. I don’t know if it was set off by timer or remote detonator, because Kyle got us moving, but we barely escaped it in time.”

  Kyle ran a hand through his hair, the crispy ends rough against his fingers. “Yeah. Barely.”

  Alexei tapped his fingers against the table and replicas of the tattoos popped up in front of everyone’s seat. Alexei leaned forward a little to look down the table at where Nazari sat at the end. “Is maybe Presnenskaya Bratva. Not certain. Not all marks clear.”

  Nazari eyed the magnified tattoo markings in front of him with a frown. “The Presnenskaya gang is a Moscow-based one with international reach.”

  “Da. They main bratva in Ukraine and contested region when I grow up. Other bratva there, but Presnenskaya worst.”

  “We do know Mexican cartels, French right-wing gangs, and some Russian mafia were working together on the experiments last year. This could be an outgrowth from that,” Jamie said.

  Kyle grimaced a little at that offhand reminder of his and Alexei’s first mission together with Alpha Team. The trafficking ring that transported Mexican migrants over the southern border to a town in Kansas in order to teleport them to the Eastern European contested region came to an end when Alpha Team blew up the base in the Carpathian Mountains. None of them were naïve enough to believe that was the end of the problem.

  Cora Everly’s employer or partner had never been clearly identified, despite how deeply MDF analysts dug. What the team had uncovered last summer was an alliance between criminal organizations spanning the globe. All of them were attempting to create metahumans for their own uses and not any government’s by inflicting Splice on captive test subjects. Considering the kill rate of the chemical, very few metahumans had been created according to th
e limited amount of data Katie had managed to retrieve off that base’s server last year during their escape. It was still enough to put all government-run metahuman agencies on edge and try to dig deeper into those criminal organizations.

  Any push into finding a vaccine to inoculate the world’s population against the Splice chemical bombs terrorists had no qualms about using would eventually take away their most dangerous weapon. It was fifty-fifty if all governments were dedicated to finding a supposed cure. War was big business: for criminals, for third party government contractors, and for the governments themselves. Kyle was cynical enough to believe he’d never see a viable anti-Splice vaccine in his lifetime.

  Nazari tapped the fingers of one hand against the armrest of his chair, staring at the holopics of the tattoo markings. “Walk me through what happened. I want every detail, no matter how innocuous you think it is. Give me everything.”

  Kyle didn’t hesitate to start talking, already knowing this debrief was going to be long. The sooner they gave the director what he wanted, the sooner they could all get cleared by Medical and go home, or in Jamie’s case, start his leave before his family upped their fight with the MDF for his attention. Kyle didn’t know why Jamie had stayed behind to backseat drive the mission, but he had a feeling Jamie’s family wouldn’t appreciate the way he’d prioritized the team over his time with them again.

  A warm hand settled on Kyle’s shoulder, squeezing gently. He looked up into Jamie’s concerned gaze as he finished tying the laces of his boots. He’d cleaned up in the small exam room’s adjacent shower after his brief time under Dr. Gracie Gold’s care and changed into a clean service uniform another agent had dropped off for him. He no longer smelled like smoke, which was nice.

  “I’m all right,” Kyle said quickly as he straightened up and got to his feet. “We all are. It got a bit dicey there for a second, but we pulled through.”

  “I know,” Jamie replied, letting his hand drop away.

  Kyle snorted. “Sure you do.”

  Jamie shrugged, not even arguing with Kyle. They both knew Jamie carried a long-lived fear of losing his teammates in battle the exact same way he’d lost most of his platoon of Recon Marines over three years ago in Tripoli, Libya. Fear was never rational, but they learned to work through it. It’s why Kyle, Alexei, and Madison had endured Jamie’s continued presence after the debriefing was finished and they were dismissed. This mission had been Katie’s to command, but she hadn’t fought it when Jamie took over.

  They left the private medical room Kyle had been corralled in for the duration of his short checkup. They found Katie, Donovan, and Annabelle taking up a couple of seats in a nearby waiting room, each of them munching on a high-calorie nutrient bar. Metahumans had faster metabolisms due to their powers and got hungrier quicker than almost everyone else. In Kyle’s admittedly limited experience with the people in Medical, he’d discovered early on that the nurses tended to automatically feed them during their after-mission examinations, either with nutrient bars or an IV. He’d devoured his own nutrient bar a little while ago.

  “Everyone good?” Jamie asked.

  “Still fine, just like the last time you asked,” Annabelle replied a bit teasingly.

  Jamie had gotten in the way of more than one nurse earlier in his need to make sure they were all okay, even Annabelle, who hadn’t been anywhere near the explosion. The only person he hadn’t quietly pestered with his presence was Gracie. The head of the MDF’s medical personnel and Donovan’s girlfriend was a metahuman whose power could heal others. Jamie knew better than to get in the way of Gracie doing her job.

  “I like to make sure. You know that.”

  “That we do,” Donovan said with a brief smile.

  “Others getting released soon?”

  Katie didn’t look up from her tablet. “I think they’re almost finished. Trevor’s wrangling them.”

  Jamie nodded. “Good job today, despite the outcome.”

  “Job isn’t over.” Katie waved her tablet at him. “Still have to log my report.”

  Kyle made a face as he flopped down in the nearest chair, which happened to be next to Donovan. “I swear, the MDF has more paperwork than Strike Force ever did.”

  “Welcome to the industrial side of the military-industrial complex. They got paperwork for everything,” Donovan drawled.

  Kyle knew they still needed to submit an after-action report no later than tomorrow evening to go with the oral record Ceres had taken down. Kyle wasn’t looking forward to the hours of work ahead he still needed to get through.

  Donovan reached over and ruffled Kyle’s damp hair. “Got a little too close to the fire this time.”

  “You’re telling me,” Kyle said a little wryly.

  “Let’s not make a habit of it,” Jamie said.

  Kyle rolled his head against the back of the chair to look at Jamie as their four other teammates finally edged into the waiting room. “Why aren’t you in New York?”

  “I wanted to hear about this mission in person.”

  Kyle wasn’t buying that excuse as the whole reason Jamie chose to stay. “You’re stalling.”

  “Of course he is,” Katie said, side-eyeing Jamie with a familiar look of exasperation in her blue eyes. “Not that I blame you, Jamie, but Kyle has a point. You have somewhere to be and it isn’t here.”

  Jamie sighed deeply. “I see who really runs this team.”

  “Blonde, blue-eyed, but it sure as hell isn’t you, boss,” Madison teased before taking a bite of her nutrient bar. “Blergh. These never taste any better. Who’s up for tacos?”

  The resounding chorus of Me! from nearly everyone made Madison pump her fist in the air in victory.

  Katie gave Jamie a pointed look. “We’ll see you later. Go deal with your family.”

  Jamie rolled his eyes as he waved goodbye to everyone and left. Not for the first time did Kyle wish he could reach out and hold onto Jamie in public without fear of being discovered as something more than teammates and friends. That they were two men wasn’t an issue, but Jamie being his direct superior officer was. Neither liked hiding their relationship from everyone except the team, but they’d both agreed months ago it was the only option they had if they wanted to be together.

  Still, living by the rule of secrecy in order to be together was tiring some days. It meant Kyle would have to wait until Jamie returned and they were home alone before he could kiss the other man properly and let Jamie know he was okay.

  For a sniper, sometimes Kyle was terrible at being patient.

  “They still want him for the campaign?” Annabelle asked once Jamie was out of earshot.

  “When do they not want him for the campaign?” Donovan replied.

  “It’s a mess,” Katie agreed as she stood. “He’ll handle it. I thought we were getting dinner?”

  Kyle shoved himself to his feet and stretched until his spine popped. “Yeah, let’s eat before the paperwork kills us.”

  “Is not fun,” Alexei agreed as he slung an arm over Kyle’s shoulders. “What if no taco?”

  Madison was first out of the waiting room, a determined look on her face. “There will be tacos if I have to cook the damn things myself.”

  2

  Ain’t No Fortunate Son

  Manhattan in winter carried no snow on its streets between the seawalls encircling the island. The wind hadn’t been icy for decades, and blizzards were stories told in high school history classes. Megatall skyscrapers that seemed to touch the clouds crowded the island, linked by aerial pedestrian walkways buttressed between restricted routes in the air and on the ground for automated cabs, cars, and buses.

  New York City had erected walls against the rising ocean across all Five Boroughs generations ago and sealed off its ancient subway in metal tubes. Humanity could live on the coasts so long as the seawalls never fell, surrounded by waterways that hadn’t existed even a century ago. The archaic bridges that used to link the Five Boroughs of the megacity were swallowe
d by rising sea waters and replaced over a century ago. Their iconic towers were salvaged from the sea and placed in a transportation museum located inland, within New York State proper, far from the waters they used to span.

  Manhattan was the jewel of New York City, its beating cultural heart a place all Americans dreamed of living one day. If you could make it there, you could make it anywhere. With a population of forty million packed into the sprawling urban megacity, dreams of a better life came crashing down daily. Manhattan was home to the inherently wealthy, offered a workplace to the half-forgotten tiny middle class, and had displaced the poor and working poor through gentrification several generations ago.

  Jamie was well aware of the history that came with his birthplace. Belonging to an extremely wealthy and politically prestigious Manhattan family meant he’d never questioned his place in life until he put on a uniform. Money, he knew from extensive experience, could buy literally anything in this day and age.

  What it couldn’t buy was family peace.

  He stepped through the sliding black doors of Sakura, the premier Japanese sushi restaurant in New York City, with grim determination to see the night through. Reservations were fought for a year in advance and the resale market for them was just as hot. Most people would never make it inside to Sakura’s elegant, sexy interior. Jamie’s family, like most other wealthy elites, had other avenues for claiming a table on short notice.

  Located on one of the highest levels in a downtown skyscraper, the restaurant took up the entire floor in an open-plan setting surrounding the central kitchen and support columns. A silk ink painting of an ancient feudal Japanese village spanned the entire wall of the waiting area to Jamie’s left. The crimson, gold, and black interior of the restaurant was softly lit, while the murmur of water flowing through the koi pond that snaked around the private dining areas was a soothing background noise. Each table was separated by silkscreen walls and living plants, which created a quasi-private environment for every party. The tables were either situated under a small mock-up of a pagoda roof or the recreated boughs of living cherry blossom trees.