“Definitely. I didn’t try to hide and nobody tried to kill me,” I said.
“Well that’s good,” she said.
“I’m going. I don’t know how long the gel’s going to last.” I took another look around. Still no sign of people.
“You’ll hear us in a minute.”
I opted for the smaller buildings with red roofs. They looked like they were the right size to stick a bunch of prisoners in. I jogged across the wide open dirt, trying to stay low and use the tiny trees as cover. If a Ranjer appeared in the next few minutes, I was pretty much dead.
Staying low was useless. All it did was hurt my back and there was no way the trees were hiding me. I’d made it maybe three-quarters of the way to the first building when a thud and rumble came from the residential area I’d left a while back. Not risking a look backward, I picked up speed and tried not to breathe in dust with each step. As I reached the first building, I saw a strange shape to my left; a huge oval in the dirt, with collapsed sheds around one end of it.
What was this place? What did Edwards Air mean? It wasn’t a city, although it was kind of like a few really small cities next to each other.
Another boom came from the west. This time, I glanced in that direction and saw smoke plumes growing in the sky.
I stepped next to a wall and studied the area around me. There was another one next to it, with a wide, flat concrete space on the other side. We’d seen these in San Francisco. Why had they made so many empty concrete fields a hundred years ago? I approached a few old, larger trees that looked very strange. They had probably been healthy at one point, but now they seemed dead. Then I pulled up short. On the other side of the trees was an airplane.
Voices and movement caught my attention. I dropped down, looking south. Ranjers erupted from one of the huge, low, white buildings behind me. They used their hover boots to fly fast across the ground and moved in a mass toward the residential area.
“Ranjers just came out of the big white buildings,” I said. “They’re coming your way.”
“Any of them see you?” Melisa asked.
“Not yet.” I kept behind the buildings and ran to the airplane. It was mounted on some kind of stand and angled up slightly.
It finally dawned on me. A residential area with wide buildings and huge roads. Now an airplane.
“It’s some kind of port. Like for airplanes. Maybe military?”
“What?” Melisa asked.
“This place. It’s an airplane base,” I said.
“Makes sense,” she said.
Another explosion sounded, this one from the north side of the residential area. Doing my best to keep buildings and trees between me and the Ranjers’ building, I ran between the structures. Most of them had no glass in their windows, making it easy to check for prisoners. The first two were empty. I ran to the next building, this one wider and longer and set off by itself near the far end of the oval I’d seen. Empty.
Getting more desperate, I ran to the next cluster, five buildings in a circle. They had old, dead trees between them. No prisoners. While I ran between them, looking left and right, another boom sounded off to the west. Sweat dripped down my back. How much longer was the nano gel going to last? Don’t absorb it too fast, body.
“Nik, update?” Melisa asked.
“There’s nobody in the smaller buildings.” I jogged across brown grass and shrubs and came to the next building. This one was taller and just as abandoned-looking. “I think everybody must be in those huge white buildings to the south.”
“Nobody’s spotted you?”
“No, and I haven’t seen anyone yet either, except those Ranjers.” A pod shot overhead. I ducked and spun to watch it fly past. “Where are you?”
“We just launched our last rocket,” Melisa said. “The Ranjers are firing at us in groups but aren’t hitting us.”
“A pod just flew your way.”
“Spam. Pod incoming!” she shouted.
“Just get out of there,” I said. “You can’t beat a pod.” I took off toward the buildings the Ranjers had come from.
“Find your parents,” Melisa said. “And—” She cut off. An explosion sounded from the residential area. I pulled to a stop, cold dread in my throat.
“Melisa!” I stood, watching the sky over the houses. I didn’t see anything except thin clouds of smoke from older explosions. “Melisa, are you there?”
“Yeah,” she answered. “We’re hit, but not bad.”
“Get out of there,” I yelled.
“No,” Melisa said. “I’ve got an idea.”
“No, don’t!” I should have been running, looking for my parents. But I couldn’t move. “Melisa!”
“Find your parents!”
She was right. I spun and raced between the trees toward the Ranjers’ buildings. I angled to my left. The nearest building was about five hundred meters away. Another pod shot overhead.
“Another pod’s coming!”
“We got the first one!” Melisa said. “I threw a projector at it and the sticky fire splashed all over the front window.”
“Nice!” I leaned forward, stretching into a full run, wanting to cross the open space fast. There were a lot more buildings on the other side of the base. I hoped I wouldn’t have to search all of those too.
“We’re coming around to make a bigger mess,” Melisa said.
“Okay,” I gasped.
The heat and dust seemed like they were stealing my breath. One foot caught on a shrub and I nearly fell. How far was that building? As I got closer, I realized it was much bigger than I’d thought at first. My lungs were screaming at me, so I slowed. The building was huge, taller than any of the domes in New Frisko, and as long as a few of the blocks in one of the residential zones. I couldn’t tell what the walls were made of.
Running between a few big sheds, I finally came to the building’s side. The Ranjers had come out the other side of it. Clinging to the warm wall, I eased along it, looking for a door or window. I turned a corner and held still, listening and watching. A rumble came from inside the building, low and strong enough that I felt vibrations in the ground. Fifty meters later, I came to another corner. This should lead to the door that the Ranjers had emerged from.
I glanced around the corner. There was no door. There wasn’t even a wall. This entire side of the building was wide open. Ranjers were inside, walking around in their uniforms. That was all I saw in the brief look I’d caught. It was time to see if my disguise worked. I set my keeper down and scrubbed at my face, then pushed my hair back. Here goes.
A metallic voice came from behind me. “Identify yourself.”
Chapter 43
Cold shock ran down my neck. I forced myself to turn slowly. A Ranjer stood five meters away, his keeper pointed at my chest. He wore body armor and a full helmet.
“Identify myself?” My voice shook. Could he hear that?
The Ranjer didn’t move. “Identify yourself.”
I ran Holland’s voice through my head; it was a little higher than mine. How would Holland sound if a Ranjer was challenging him? “Adam Holland, Ranjer.” Anger might work. “You might want to go find the source of those explosions.”
The Ranjer’s head dropped a little to the side. “Dr. Holland?”
I couldn’t give him a chance to get a better look. “Get moving, Ranjer!”
The Ranjer straightened, brought his keeper across his chest, and ran past me.
“Nik,” Melisa said in my ear. “Get ready for us.”
“Where are you—”
A pod screamed overhead. The open hole where the door should have been told me who it was. A tiny object dropped from the open door. The pod kept flying straight, getting smaller by the second. The object hit the dirt, a glowing rectangle above it. Ranjers streamed out of the huge building, including the Ranjer who had challenged me.
The projector bomb exploded, throwing sticky white fire everywhere.
I darted into the building, miss
ing my keeper immediately. I slowed to a regular walk and tried to imagine I was Holland walking through his own building. Long, thin lights illuminated the cavernous space. Pods stretched in a row down the middle of the floor. Two Ranjers burst out of a room in a back corner of the building. They saw me and came running. Two pods lifted off and shot out of the building.
“Nik, we’re getting low on power. I don’t know what else we can do,” Melisa said.
Crossing an empty space, I kept my voice quiet so the running Ranjers wouldn’t hear me. “Just get somewhere safe. More pods coming.” Weapons lockers and work stations surrounded the pods. I passed a shelf with compartments full of bullets. A metal crate had grenades in it. Where did all of these things come from? Had our pod been in this building?
“Dr. Holland?” The Ranjers came to a halt at the exact same moment. “What is happening?” I couldn’t tell which Ranjer was speaking.
“Somebody found our base,” I said. “Go get them.” And don’t come any closer.
“But the prisoners,” one of the Ranjers said.
“I’ll take care of them,” I said.
The Ranjers stood for a moment, their faces hidden behind their helmet faceplates.
“Go!”
They broke into a run, passing me and heading toward the gaping opening. Making sure they couldn’t see me, I grabbed a grenade, pressed the activator on the end, and threw it as hard as I could toward the far end of the building. It skipped off a pod and exploded. The Ranjers changed direction, running faster toward the explosion than I’d ever seen a person run.
“They’re getting closer,” I shouted. “Find them and stop them! I’ll take care of the prisoners.”
I couldn’t tell if the Ranjers heard me, but at least they didn’t realize I wasn’t their leader. I walked fast toward the door they had come from. Except this wasn’t much of a door. It was just a wide open hole that led to indistinct darkness. Before I got there, I pulled a keeper from a locker, slapped an ammunition drum onto it, and slung the strap across my chest.
The gaping doorway was at least four meters wide. The space it led to was a little wider and deeper. The three walls of the space were completely blank; no other doors and no windows. I explored the empty space, wondering why the Ranjers had said something about prisoners after coming from this area. Nobody was here.
The back wall looked like it could be the back wall of the biggest building. I remembered the hidden room in the building in old Frisko and walked around, studying the walls closely.. On my second circuit, I found a flat panel on one of the walls. It was simply a circle, so it blended in perfectly. I brushed it lightly.
I heard a hum, then a rumble that vibrated the floor. No, wait. The floor was actually moving—dropping steadily downward. Like in Prime One back in New Frisko.
Wishing I had my chest light, I brought my keeper up and turned complete circles, doing my best to see everywhere at once. The floor, or elevator really, dropped about ten meters and stopped. I didn’t need my chest light; long, icy white lights lined the ceiling of a wide tunnel that stretched out as far as I could see. Turning around, I didn’t see anywhere else to go. From what I remembered about the building cluster, the tunnel probably ran northeast. That was in the direction of the buildings I had ignored after seeing Ranjers run from this one.
Long, shiny tracks extended from the elevator floor down the tunnel. A metallic smell hung in the air, as well as a heat that seemed strange underground. Nothing moved and I couldn’t hear anything anymore. This would be a bad place to run into a bunch of Ranjers. I needed to go.
“Melisa, I don’t know if you can hear me or if you’re out of range.” I started walking fast. “I found a tunnel under the big building. I think it goes to those buildings on the northeast end. I’m following it.”
No response came. Please be okay. The tunnel stretched a long way. The walls were made of featureless dark stone. What was going on outside? Had the Ranjers caught up to Melisa and the others? Did Holland know it was us? Were my parents alive?
My walk became a run. I felt at my face. My chin and nose felt bigger than usual. The nano gel was still working. I concentrated on keeping my breathing under control while I jogged. It seemed like the tunnel was kilometers long. What did they use it for?
Suddenly, I realized that what I’d thought was just more tunnel up ahead was actually some kind of machine, parked on a flat space. An empty black square hung right above the machine. Another elevator. The vehicle became clearer as I approached. It had metal disks for wheels and a plain column on one side that stuck up from a low-slung flat bed. Some kind of cargo carrier. It was empty right now, but it must have been used to carry big, heavy things. It looked incredibly strong. I examined the column and found controls for forward and backward. No steering mechanism, which made sense since it obviously rode straight up and down the tunnel on top of the metal tracks.
I listened for activity above me and heard nothing. Had I left the other building too fast? Maybe I should have looked around the big pod building more before following the tunnel. Too late for that. Unsure of how much longer my nano gel was going to work, I looked around for the control to bring the elevator up. I found it and paused to listen again. I didn’t hear anything, so I activated the elevator. It rumbled to life and I rode it upward.
The space above had a weak light source that only illuminated the area as I got higher. Ducking behind the cargo vehicle, I watched the building come into view. Big, heavy pieces of machinery lined metal walls.
As the elevator drew near the top of its path, human legs appeared, standing at the edge of the floor. Then midsections and torsos materialized. I was glad I was hidden by the body of the cargo vehicle, because I nearly fell over when the two faces appeared. They were both Adam Holland.
Chapter 44
The two Hollands watched the elevator complete its ascent. Their eyes slid to the empty cargo vehicle.
“This is wrong,” the one on the left said.
“This is wrong,” the one on the right said too.
They stood there, staring emptily at the cargo vehicle. They hadn’t spotted me, although if they had just looked up a little, they would have.
“Send it back for a load,” the left one said.
The one on the right said the same thing a half second after the other one.
I crouched behind the vehicle, my mind completely frozen. How could there be two Hollands? And what was wrong with him? Them? Were they somehow people like me with nano gel? Were they the prisoners with nano gel on their faces and their minds wiped or something?
That was stupid. These two were identical. Where had I—
One of them leaned to the side and pressed the button to send the elevator back down. I flinched and rolled off just as the floor dropped.
“Ranjer!” one of them called out, the other again saying the same thing at almost the same time. The sound of Holland’s voice in double sent cold ice down my spine. I twisted; they had seen me.
I remembered. The clear casket things under Prime One after we’d thought we’d beaten the Prime Administrator. There had been a bunch of those caskets, each one holding what had looked like a sleeping Adam Holland. Somehow Holland had cloned himself, and these had to be those clones. But why were they acting like that?
“Ranjer!” They both called again, standing unnaturally still. I didn’t wait for them to figure out how to attack me. I sprinted along the side of the gaping square elevator hole in the floor and dove at them. I slammed into the first one, making it stumble back into the other. The second one fell into the hole, landing with a flat thud. The one I’d hit straightened and just stood there, its arms at its sides. What is this?
“You’re a clone. Like the one acting like the Prime Administrator in New Frisko.” I remembered how that clone had sometimes spoken slowly, reacting to things with a weird delay. I shoved it and it fell after its double.
So Holland had figured out clones, but not how to make them act li
ke normal people all the time. Were these drone clones? What had Holland called them in those last seconds before the gas bomb had fallen? I didn’t remember.
I assessed my surroundings. Behind me gaped the elevator. The building was about as big as one of the Enjineering zones in the Enjineering Dome. Pieces of machinery big and small lined the walls, although there was a clear path between the floor elevator and a wide double door.
Those doors were wide open, letting bright light in. Hugging a wall, I got to the door and peered out. More Hollands walked around, most of them carrying things. They moved mechanically, like I imagined human-shaped robots would move. Which was probably what they were. But how was he controlling them? And cloning had never quite worked for the old civilization—how had Holland done it?
Down the road, four Ranjers stood next to a small building about the size of two pods sitting next to each other. There was a heavy door on this one. As I watched, two more Ranjers showed up at a run. The Holland clones leaned away from the Ranjers as they walked by. Their eyes stayed straight ahead of them, never moving to the left or right. One of them came toward the building I was in. I slid backwards into a shadow. The clone walked in, pushing a wheeled platform with what looked like a pod component on it.
The Holland clone pushed the platform over to the square hole in the ground and activated the elevator. I darted over and tackled it. It gave zero resistance. I flipped it over and looked it in the eyes. It looked back—but not really. It saw me, but in the same way that I would see a rock. There was nothing behind those eyes. No intelligence; no light. Everything about it was wrong.
I knocked the clone out and dragged it behind a pile of spare pod parts as the elevator hummed and rumbled upward. Outside, the six Ranjers were on high alert, two of them roaming around the building while the other four stood at the door with their keepers up. They were obviously guarding the building—making that my best bet for the prisoners’ location. I had no chance of going against all six Ranjers and winning, even if I snuck up on them. Obviously with Melisa and the others causing all the confusion on the other side of the base, they knew something was going on, but had they figured out that all that was just a distraction?
Push (Beat series Book 2) Page 26