Reign: Populations Crumble, Book 3

by K. A. Gandy

  “It ain’t right, what’s been done to these po’ women. Rumor is there’s more of ‘em—that true?”

  “It is. Glitch has a list,” I confirm, feeling wiped out.

  “You tell your Glitch that I’ll drive to e’ry one of ‘em until we snatch these women out o’ there. This ain’t right, and Mav ain’t ‘bout to let no’one stay like this as long as I got wings to carry ‘em out o’ there. You hea’ me? We gon’ get every. Last. One.” Her cajun accent gets thicker as she gets more riled up, and jabs her finger into the panel of the helicopter, before Doctor Courso calls out that they’re ready for takeoff.

  “Fly safe, Maverick,” I say, stepping back towards the tree line. I look around, and see that once they take off it will only be me and Nell left here, and the hair stands up on the back of my neck. Each of the men on the combat team has returned to the facility to finish their cleanup and destruction job, and we haven’t seen hide nor hair of Glitch since he initially swept the room.

  Mav climbs into the pilot’s seat and turns back to us before shutting the door. “You done real good in there, today. You’re good people.” She shuts the door with a final snap and, in another breath, the blades start turning, forcing us to take cover lest we get blown over by the downdraft.

  Nell and I cling to each other, just inside the tree line as the helicopter lifts higher and higher, blending with the night sky except for the noise of the blades. Chop-chop-chop-chop . . . As the sound begins to fade, we both turn our attention to the fires on the western horizon. They seem smaller, which is a sure sign our window of opportunity is about to slam shut. With no sign of our pickup vehicle yet, we decide to walk back towards the facility, so we’ll hopefully meet the men halfway.

  We’re almost back when we hear voices, and freeze. The familiar sound of Patrick’s voice causes the tension to drain from my shoulders. We pick up the pace, and have almost reached the edge of the forest when an explosion blinds us as it nearly knocks us off our feet.

  Reverberate

  When the blinding white fades from my vision, my ears are still ringing, and my limbs shaking like leaves. I look over and see Nell holding her ears, looking wild-eyed as well. Reaching over, I grab her by the forearm and lead her forward, so we stay together. But I have to know that Patrick’s okay, and he was closer to that explosion than we were.

  We stumble forward, dodging trees and scrub brush and finally stumble into the clearing. The men are all there, Patrick, Ajax, and Glitch leaning over Atlas, on the ground. Nell snatches her arm out of my grip and runs to him, dropping to her knees at his side. When I get close enough, I see he’s bleeding profusely from a head wound.

  “What happened?” I yell.

  Patrick turns and squints, and I can tell he still didn’t hear me.

  “WHAT HAPPENED?” I try again.

  “SHRAPNEL. I THINK HE’LL BE OKAY, JUST HAVE TO STOP THE BLEEDING,” he hollers back.

  I turn back to Atlas, but see Nell’s already on top of it. She’s pulled gauze and tape from her cargo pants pockets, and is applying firm pressure as Glitch fumbles the tape roll with shaking hands. Patrick takes it from him, and swiftly removes several long pieces and passes them to Nell, who efficiently binds the gauze to his head. Finished, she grabs him under one arm, and Patrick grabs him under the other, and they haul him to his feet. With his legs wobbling like a newborn foal’s, I worry they’re all going to tumble straight back down so I hurry around and place two hands firmly against his back to steady him.

  Once he stops swaying in the breeze, we walk at a painstaking pace towards the clearing’s edge. The hike out of the woods is slow, and Patrick trades off supporting Atlas’s right side with Glitch, so he can watch our backs until we reach our pickup location. Glitch is leading us based on a pre-programmed GPS coordinate in his comm watch. Or knowing Glitch, some other gizmo he invented.

  Thankfully Atlas gets steadier on his feet as we go, and by the end he’s able to walk with only Nell for support. We exit the dense brush at an unpaved side road, and I couldn’t be happier to see a ubiquitous black vehicle idling there, waiting for us. The back hatch pops open at our approach, and Patrick confirms the driver’s ID before we pile into the cargo hatch. Atlas leans wearily against the backrest of the bench seat while Nell checks underneath the bandage.

  “The bleeding’s stopped, so I think you’ll be all right. But we’ll need to get you checked out by one of the doctors to make sure. It seems like it only grazed you, so you were really lucky.” Her voice wavers at the end, and for the first time in our acquaintance, Nell bursts into tears. Atlas heaves his arm up and around her shoulders, and pulls her into his side. He slowly leans down and plants a kiss on the top of her head.

  “It’s okay, Nell-bell. I’m okay.” He shushes her and holds her, and we all ride in weary silence as our ride bumps over the unpaved road.

  Eventually the tires meet pavement, and we pick up speed. Nell’s tears have long since dried, and she’s sleeping peacefully tucked into Atlas’s side. She looks young there. It’s easy to forget she’s only seventeen when she’s awake and full of fire and vinegar.

  Glitch pushes his glasses up his nose, and fiddles with the gadget in his hands for the umpteenth time. He finally speaks, “What happened back there? That detonation was way too close to us.”

  Atlas shakes his head. “I don’t know, man. I didn’t pull the trigger. It was on a remote switch, set to ignite a fast burn from what we were told, to make it look like equipment malfunctioned, then caught on the oxygen supply in the treatment room.”

  “Well, either they lied to us, or it was defective. Either way—”

  Patrick’s look is grave as he finishes the thought—“It’s time to call my father.”

  ✽✽✽

  Eighteen hours later, Atlas has been cleared by the medical team; we’ve confirmed that three of the four women are awake and confused, but otherwise doing well, all things considered; and we’ve all crashed. After a lengthy shower in the cactus-themed bathroom in our room, I emerge with my hair wrapped in a towel feeling tired still, but squeaky clean in my standard-issue Resistance black sweats. Patrick’s sitting on the edge of our temporary bed, elbows on his knees.

  “Hello, Mr. Royce, what brings you here this evening?” I ask in my best flirty tone, and put one hand on my hip.

  The smile he flashes me is appreciative, but wan. “Hey, Mrs. Royce. You, of course.” His words return my flirty gesture, but his heart isn’t in it.

  I plop onto the bed next to him, and wiggle my arm around his to rub the inside of his forearm. “What’s wrong, Patrick? I expected you to be a lot happier, given we just successfully saved four women and four babies last night.”

  He sighs. “I am happy about that, truly. But, here we are—still in the middle of a mess—and I don’t see a clear way out.”

  That’s my Patrick, always looking ahead to the next hurdle. “Did you get in touch with your dad?”

  “No, not yet. That’s not how it works, exactly, though. I have a secure phone number for him in case of emergency, where I leave a message with a return number, and he’ll call me back when he’s in a private location. So, I should hear back in eight to twelve hours. Although, it may be sooner given the presumed kidnapping.” He says this all in a bland tone, as if it’s the most normal thing in the world to have a secret, memorized phone contact for your politician father across the continent.

  Tension coils in my stomach, but I keep my voice calm when I ask, “And we’re sure they won’t trace anything, and come swoop us up before we’ve figured this out, right?”

  “Right. Glitch has secured a clean phone, and done his voodoo on it to make it untraceable.” He points his thumb toward the living room, where Glitch’s choppy snores penetrate the thin walls from his spot on the couch. I must have been exhausted after the mission because I didn’t notice at all last night.

  “So, now we wait.”

  “Now we wait,” he agrees.

  “Wha
t do we do in the meantime?” I ask, doodling little shapes on the inside of his arm with my fingertips.

  He shrugs. “Great question. Rest, try to keep you away from explosions, and review the footage Glitch got last night. Make a plan, again.”

  It’s my turn to sigh. There’s always another plan.

  ✽✽✽

  After we eat some breakfast-turned-dinner, the five of us follow Ajax and Branch back to headquarters, to debrief and share the mission footage with the Resistance leadership. Nell links arms with me, and does her sassiest walk along the way, and everyone chats amiably. We’re all in high spirits after a successful mission, despite hitting a few snags along the way.

  We arrive at the headquarters, and it’s lacking the hustle-and-bustle we saw the first time. Only a few people are lingering inside around a sleek chrome coffee machine, plus we can already see people seated around the long black table in the fishbowl conference room. Wasting no time, we cut straight there, and our chatter dies out as we cross the threshold.

  After taking a seat close to the door, I glance around the room and see there are only two empty seats remaining at the other end of the table. We all sit in awkward silence, and it’s evident, as usual, that we are not on the same team. No one wants to shoot the breeze, or risk giving away an important detail. Ajax hovers behind us, leaning beside the doorway with a bandage on his hand that I hadn’t noticed before. With nothing else to do, I observe each person seated around the table, imagining what brought them here. Once I’ve exhausted that avenue of thought, I examine the room. It’s empty save the table, chairs, the control cylinder, and a potted plant with purple flowers on a stand behind Glitch’s seat.

  I’m jolted from my woolgathering when Helena and Brock breeze in, at least fifteen minutes late. “Well now, aren’t you a lively bunch. Shouldn’t you look happier, after such a smashing success?” She doesn’t bother to fog the windows this time, since the building has now fully cleared out.

  Atlas grumbles under his breath, but I miss whatever it was as I’m watching Brock pull out the head seat for Helena, and slide her back in. His hand lingers on her shoulder a bit longer than strictly proper before he takes his own seat.

  She claps red-nailed hands together. “Let’s get down to it. Who wants to begin the debriefing?”

  Ryker springs to his feet, and starts rattling off the details of the supply run and diversionary portion of the mission. Everyone nods along, and it sounds like they’ve fully resupplied everything except some seed potato varieties they were hoping to prep for next year so they’d be less reliant on outside food sources.

  Next, Doctor Courso stands, and gives a brief statement on the women’s health status, and the fact that the fourth woman still isn’t responding to their current attempts to wake her. She is starting to have contractions, and they’re worried that the stress is interfering with her body’s response to the drugs she was held under.

  “How long has Paige been held under sedation, doctor?” Helena asks.

  He looks grim. “She’s been held the longest of these four. As far as the records Glitch was able to provide and what we gleaned from her medical file at the facility, she’s been a captive for nearly seven years. She’s the oldest, the furthest along in her pregnancy, and she’s been bed-bound for so long . . . she may not have the strength reserves needed to recover. But we’ll continue doing our best to rouse her, and give her a chance at rehabilitation. They’ve all got a long road ahead, but her outlook is the most grave.”

  Seven years. Sweet Jesus, help her.

  Helena presses on coolly, undeterred by the awful news. “Did the file say how many children she’s birthed in that time?”

  “This is her sixth full-term pregnancy.”

  “No wonder they kept her so long.” She taps her nails idly on the tabletop, and the sound feels like it’s drilling directly into my skull. “Any mention of the sperm donors for the infants?”

  “Not by name, but there was a list of donor’s numbers in her file. It’s possible someone with the right access might be able to connect those numbers to real men.” He glances out of the corner of his eye at Glitch, before focusing in on Helena.

  “Good, we’ll see if we can make that connection. If she doesn’t make it, the baby has a father somewhere.” She raps her knuckles twice on the table, and then points at Atlas. “You’re up. Show us what you’ve got for footage.”

  Before Atlas can move, Glitch starts talking a mile a minute, “Actually, Helena, I’ll take it from here, if that’s okay? I mean, I assume it’s okay, since Atlas isn’t the one who took the footage. I mean, he was the one in charge of the rescue mission, which you all already know was executed quite successfully. Very impressive, frankly, Atlas’s field skills. You should’ve seen him! The way he just charges in there like—”

  “By all means, Glitch, please stand and present your findings.” Helena’s tone is bone dry, and she gestures for Glitch to stand.

  “Oh. Oh, yes, of course!” He slams his chair backwards—right into the potted plant on the decorative wire stand, which tumbles gracelessly to the floor—as he rises. “Oh, look at me! I’m sorry. What a mess. Here, give me a moment, to, to—” he drops to his knees and starts scooping the black potting soil back into the pot with both hands, before righting the now crooked purple flower, and setting it back atop the stand.

  Everyone around the table stares in bemused silence at his erratic motions. Before I can get fully out of my seat to help him, he’s already back upright.

  He stands, drags his hands up and down his pants to knock off the dirt, and then shoves his glasses back up his nose, leaving a big streak of black behind, right up the middle of his nose. “Now, where was I? Oh, yes, the footage.” He reaches into his pocket, and pulls out a camera. “So, the initial recording was highly successful. I was able to capture quite a bit of damning evidence, from the exterior of the building with it’s clearly disguised setting, continuously throughout a tour of the building, starting with the sedated women, images of their charts with identification, and then more continuous filming down the hall to the security offices, where I scanned as much data as possible with the camera utilizing a hacking program I’d pre-prepared for the purpose of opening and displaying files in rapid succession, all while copying the device for later perusal in depth. Really nifty little piece of code, actually.” He pauses to take a breath, and as I look over to Helena, I notice Brock off to her side, jaw muscle twitching in irritation.

  He might have been a handsome man, even quite a bit older than I am, if he didn’t always have such a mulish expression fixed on his face. His buzz-cut and the streaks of silver in his hair give him that hardened, mysterious look, but at this exact moment he looks like he wants to whack Glitch over the head with one of the conference room chairs.

  “As I was saying, all of the footage was continuous, so a professional can verify no edits have been made when presented for evidence, which is key. That, combined with the women’s own testimonies and their apparent non-deaths should provide for a very open-and-shut case when it’s time to present this to, well, whoever we need to present this to.” He grins, quite pleased with himself.

  I gesture to my nose, and make a wiping motion. He quirks an eyebrow at me, but doesn’t take the hint.

  “Thank you, Glitch, so will you be presenting any of this wonderful footage of yours to us, so that we can share in the feat you’ve accomplished?” Her mocking tone makes me want to slap her, but I resist the urge.

  “Oh, no, unfortunately that won’t be possible. Maybe not for quite some time, actually.”

  Now Helena’s jaw has joined Brock’s in twitching. Glitch can be a bit much at times, but these two are going to chip a tooth if they keep clenching their teeth so hard.

  “Well, you see, due to the faulty timing and execution of the final incendiary device, the camera was damaged before we made it away from the scene.”

  “Pardon?” She arches a white-blonde eyebrow at him, ire
dripping from the single word like poison.

  “Apologies. ‘Incendiary,’ as loosely defined by Webster’s twenty-seventh edition, means ‘relating to, weaponry such as bombs designed to start fires or incite arson.’ Or also ‘inflame,’ but I don’t feel that piece of the definition really applies in this case.” He finally seems to read the rising anger in the room, and rushes to add, “ Uhm, ma’am.” He nervously spins the camera around in his hands as he looks back and forth between Brock and Helena, clearly the power couple in this room.

  This time it’s Brock that slaps his hand on the table and shouts, “Good God, man, we know what incendiary means, we gave you the bomb! How can we use the footage if the camera’s broken? Did you upload it somewhere?”

  “Unfortunately, no.”

  Brock groans, “How can a so-called technical genius such as yourself not have thought to upload the damn footage? The gossips over at NAA One have auto-uploaders, and you want to tell me you don’t?”

  Glitch reels back as if he’s been slapped, and Patrick rises to his feet in defense. “How about we all take a step back, and allow Glitch to finish explaining the situation, before jumping on him? I knew ahead of time that there wouldn’t be an upload, due to security. Right, Glitch?”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “How nice of you to volunteer to explain it to us, then. Succinctly, if you would,” Helena says coldly now that she’s regained a modicum of composure.

  “Well, Glitch is certainly more qualified than I am, but I’ll be happy to relay what I can. Auto-uploader technology is owned in its entirety by the Eurasia Alliance. All of the destination servers are leased to the other countries for proprietary uses, but Glitch informed me that it is known they have backdoor access to each server, and there have been major leaks in the past when something of particular political value makes it onto one of their servers. Given that we want to control the spread and audience of this footage tightly, we didn’t feel it was worth the risk to back it up remotely, and his equipment for backing it up securely was stored in the pickup vehicle ahead of time for exactly that reason. However, due to the premature detonation of the bomb we were provided, the camera was damaged.”